


The Dusk and the Dawn

by MadeNightwing



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blacksun Week 2020, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25526497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadeNightwing/pseuds/MadeNightwing
Summary: They say the sun loved the moon but could never hold her, doomed to chase her around the sky until all his energy was spent. Sun Wukong thought it was a foolish way to show your love. Chasing someone was a sure way to get them to run away. Better to wait. Wait until the right moment, when sun and moon shared the sky together.Seven shots of Blake and Sun for Blacksun Week 2020.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Sun Wukong, Oscar Pine/Ruby Rose
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	1. A Far off Dawn

Day 1: Trust

Blake’s ears twitched at the sound. The soft whimpering that preceded a squall. She sat up on instinct, legs swinging toward the side of the bed before a gentle hand caught her shoulder.

‘I’ve got this,’ Sun murmured. He was already stirring from where he lay beside her, working himself free of the silk sheets with barely a rustle. ‘Mama needs her rest, too.’

Sleepy as she was, Blake slumped back down onto the pillows, drowsily tracking her husband’s movement across the room to the small crib by the window. The moon shimmered on his skin as he stepped into the light, his lips curling into a smile as he dropped his tail down and fished out the tiny bundle that had become the most precious thing in their lives.

‘Hey little Sunflower,’ Sun cooed. ‘Do you need changing? No? Maybe just a walk?’

Despite herself, Blake couldn’t help but sit back up. ‘Are you sure you’re alright?’

Sun put on an expression of mock hurt. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

He vanished out the door, their daughter pressed tight to his chest. Blake was free to doze off at her leisure, and yet his words had awoken a trickle of something old and new.

Trust.

In her youth she had given and received it freely. Back when her parents had led the White Fang. When Sienna Khan had served as her father’s loyal lieutenant, and Adam had been Sienna’s devoted protégé. They had all trusted each other back then. Before Ghira had asked for patience one time too many. Before Sienna fanned the flames of Adam’s hatred. Before Adam became a killer and tried to make Blake, Ilia and all their friends be killers with him.

They had all paid the price for trust too lightly valued. Some with their innocence. Others with their lives.

The desire for sleep left her. Slipping her legs over the side of her bed, Blake took a moment to pull on a dressing gown. She was not quite as resistant to the desert chill as her husband, after all.

She found them in the kitchen, Sun murmuring sweet nothings to the baby in his arms as he fixed himself a sandwich with his tail. Sunflower was dozing again, her tiny mop of downy blonde hair rising and falling against Sun’s shoulder in synchronisation with her breathing. Their daughter would be a mirror for him later on, Blake thought. With clear blue eyes and sandy hair and a smile as bright as a cloudless sky.

But the pretty ears ears atop her head would always show the world she was Blake’s daughter. And a faunus.

Oh, how she would be loved. By her mother and father. By the three women who had duelled vigorously over the right to be godmother. By the hoard of honorary aunts and uncles in Vale and Mistral (as evidenced by the presents piling up by the door). That love would be her shield against the bitterness and hate that still lingered in the world. A light to save her from the shadows that had swallowed Blake and her childhood friends.

And she trusted Sun to help that dream realise. She hadn’t thought she could trust someone the way she trusted him. Not again. Not just as a teammate or a partner. Like Ruby or Weiss or her parents. True, he had been brave and funny, devoted to her almost from the start. But Adam and Ilia had been like that once. And the kindness, gentleness and devotion they’d once shown had splintered in the shadows, crushed by the weight of their demons.

Sun had kept his. Despite everything he’d been through at Beacon, Menagerie and Vacuo he was still…him. He was the man who would fight to be with the people that he loved. He’d followed her halfway across the world and into a battle that shouldn’t have been his just to prove that.

She trusted him to teach Sunflower that strength.

Sun saw her staring and flashed her a grin. ‘Hey you. Tea?’

Blake glanced at the clock. It was almost dawn. ‘Please.’

‘One Mistral-blend coming up.’ He dextrously handled baby, sandwich and teapot with hands and tail. As graceful in the kitchen as on the battlefield. Her lips turned up at the thought.

‘Here, let me hold her.’ She stretched out her arms. Sun’s brow furrowed as he glanced down at the infant.

‘She only just dropped off. Are you sure?’

Blake cocked an eye in mock offense. ‘What? Don’t you trust me?’

\---------------------------------

Sun knew a lot about trust. You didn’t really have a choice, growing up in a nomad tribe made it very simple. If you couldn’t trust everyone around you to carry their weight then the hwoel thing fell apart.

His Dad had liked saying that trust was gained by the spoonful and lost by the bucket. Sun knew all about that. He’d lost trust with his teammates before, just as Blake had with hers. It had damaged some bonds, even if they’d both gone a long way towards fixing them. Not that Sun had ever doubted that Blake would come through in the end.

He had a sixth sense for trust. Well, that or his childhood had permanently altered the way he viewed interpersonal relationships to the point where he could instinctively make out who was trustworthy and who wasn’t. He didn’t like getting into it too much.

Point was, he did trust Blake. He’d always trusted Blake. And she’d never let him down.

Still, it pained him to let his daughter go, so short a time had he held her these last few weeks. Were it anyone else he would rather lose his tail, so precious to him was the tiny thing on his shoulder.

He gently passed Sunflower over, though. For Blake. Because he trusted her. Now and always. Even when she hadn’t trusted herself. He had always known that she wouldn’t hide on Menagerie. He would have bet a fortune on it. Blake fought for what she believed in, but she fought even harder for the people that she trusted. She’d fought for the White Fang until they’d proven unworthy of that trust. She’d fought for her team.

She’d fought for him.

Sun trusted her to fight for their daughter. Trusted that she’d teach little Sunflower all the things she’d learnt. How to be strong. How to face her enemies. How to stand by her friends in the darkest hours.

‘I do trust you.’

Blake glanced back at him, surprised that he’d answered her joke. But Sun was no longer joking.

‘I trust you,’ he said. ‘Always.’

Blake felt her cheeks burn under the intensity of his gaze, the sincerity of his words lighting something in her chest that chased away the chill.

She reached out an arm to draw him in, tea left forgotten on the counter as she brushed her lips against his. Their daughter rested between them, their hands softly joining as the sun crested the eastern ridge and painted the desert near the oasis in hues of amber and gold. Blake and Sun drew closer, basking in the warmth.


	2. A Closer Sunset

  1. Reunion



‘How do I look?’

Neptune sighed. ‘About the same as the last three times you asked.’

Sun took the rebuke with good grace. He still couldn’t rest any easier. When they’d gotten the signal that Ruby and the others were inbound, he’d been bouncing off the walls. All the whispers from Atlas…the carnage…

He was almost ashamed that he couldn’t think of anything else but Blake. It had been months since they parted in Mistral, her fond kiss on his cheek still burning in his memory. He’d almost lost his nerve and jumped on the train with her. But they had both agreed. Someone needed to scout out Vacuo and the lamp needed to go to Atlas where it would be safe. And they had both been away from their teams for too long.

So he’d let her go. Smiling just long enough to convince her that he’d be alright. He’d saved his pensive silences for the ship to Vacuo. Neptune hadn’t needled him about it. Much. Sage and Scarlet had still been fuming at him for running after Blake. He regretted letting them down. Truly.

He wouldn’t take it back. Not one moment.

But…what if he’d made the wrong call. What if things had happened in Argus? In Atlas? What if she’d met someone? Someone more serious? More mature? What if he’d missed his chance?

His mind buzzed with what ifs and maybes until it felt like it was vibrating out of his skull.

‘There it is!’ Neptune grabbed his arm and pointed. ‘See?’

Sun blinked. It was flying low. Much lower than he’d expected, given the approaching sunset. As it grew closer he could make out the battle scars along the flanks of the gunship. It had seen heavy battle, and recently. His heart froze.

Ruby’s message had been scant on details. What if Blake had been hurt? What if she…?

The doors opened as the VTOL settled onto the landing pad. His heart beat again. Clad in a white jumpsuit, her uniform more heavily armoured than before, a tired smile on her face, was Blake.

He stopped himself from hurtling into her arms. Barely. All the questions from before swarmed back again. Did he greet her as a friend? Or as the woman he…well…kind of…sort of…maybe…?

She solved the issue for him by leaping down and wrapping her arms around him.

The force in the hug surprised him. Yet he couldn’t stop smiling even as his ribs contracted.

‘I missed you,’ was what he planned to say. But, when he opened his mouth, Blake kissed him.

It was…overwhelming. All their other kisses, from their first at the Vytal Dance to the hungry, desperate night before Haven, had been quiet. Private. For her to kiss him so openly meant that things had changed. Dramatically. Because right now she was treating his lips olike the only source of water in Vacuo.

‘Geez! Get a room you two!’ A cheery voice yelled. Sun broke away to see Yang and Weiss staring down at them.

Yang wore a broad grin, both thumbs up as she nodded her approval. Weiss had a look of exasperated amusement, but her smile was warmer than he’d ever seen.

‘I guess that answers if he still has feelings for her,’ she said slyly. Blake blushed. Sun blushed. Neptune gazed on with a slack jaw.

‘Ah…hmm,’ Sun turned back to Blake. Partly to keep looking at her. Mostly because Yang’s grin was becoming unnerving. ‘It’s really, um, great to see you. You look, ah, well armed. Like the outfit. Lots of armour. I think your dad was worried about that with the, uh, the old one. Your hair is…’

Blake pressed a finger against his lips. ‘Is there somewhere we could go?’ She asked shyly.

‘Uh, there’s the place I’m sharing with Neptune…’

‘Forget about me,’ Neptune interrupted. ‘I will be here. Unpacking.’

‘We didn’t bring any luggage,’ Weiss said.

‘Unpacking,’ Neptune said loudly. ‘I will be here. For quite some time.’

The corners of Blake’s lips twitched upwards. ‘Well then, Sun…?’

\-----------------------------

Sun usually slept in a hammock. And whilst he and Blake were both graceful people, no one was that acrobatic.

They used the couch instead.

After, when their breath had returned and they’d retrieved most of their clothing, Sun could finally get something off his chest.

‘I love the new haircut.’

Blake propped her head up on his torso and narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re still a dork.’

‘What? I’m serious,’ Sun said with a laugh. ‘What guy doesn’t want his girlfriend to look like she wants to speak with the manager?’

The same reluctant smile floated to her lips as always. ‘It’s nice to know you haven’t changed.’

‘Hey, what’s a couple of near death expierences on the road to Vacuo?’ Sun deadpanned.

He’d hoped for a laugh, instead Blake looked away. His own good spirits faded at the pain on her face.

‘Things went bad in Atlas?’

‘That is putting it lightly,’ she sighed. ‘In Atlas. On the way to Atlas…well, it’s been a long few months.’

Sun went quiet. There was a question he wanted to ask. Needed to ask and yet didn’t want to even hint at.

Blake, as usual, saw right through him. ‘Something’s bothering you?’

‘I don’t want to make this about me,’ Sun said. ‘I just…we heard rumours about what happened in Argus. People were saying you all caused a Grimm attack. That you sabotaged the city’s defences. A faunus body being pulled out of the river. For a while I didn’t know if it was you or…’

‘It was Adam,’ Blake said flatly.

Sun flinched, but Blake’s face immediately softened. ‘It’s alright. It’s over now. He caught up with us at Argus. He got the drop on me. Yang got the drop on him.’

‘Hells…’ Sun couldn’t imagine just how big a drop Yang would have needed. He shuddered at the memory of a mocking smile under burning red eyes.

Blake must have misinterpreted. ‘It was self defence. He gave us no choice.’

‘I-I believe you,’ Sun said hastily. ‘I just…’ He paused. The words from Blake had been almost mechanical. Like she’d rehearsed them over and over again. ‘Is there more to it?’

Blake stared toward the window. The sun was falling fast below the horizon, the head of the day retreating under the pressure of cold winds from the north. Soon it would be necessary to activate the heater, releasing the stored warmth of the day to guard against the freezing cold of a desert winter.

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she finally said. ‘Self defence. Manslaughter. He never cared about the technicalities. Why should I?’

From anyone else it would be a rhetorical question. Sun knew her better. Blake questioned everything. Even herself sometimes.

‘You do care,’ Sun said. She didn’t respond, so he kept going. ‘You care because you’re better than him.’

She didn’t respond for a while, seemingly content to rest in his arms as they watched the last rays of the sun vanish behind a hill and the shadows in the city lengthened like a sinister carpet over the palm trees and waterways.

‘We landed in Mantle first,’ Blake finally spoke. ‘Everyone was worried. Worried about the relic. About Ironwood. About Ozpin and Salem and…and everything else. But all I could think was: _Adam and Ilia were born here._ Born into those dirty, cold, cramped streets. They used to tell me about the faunus zones. The disregard the city had for even basic amenties in those areas. The crime sprees from human gangs. Law enforcement teams assigned their practically on punishment detail. I looked around and realised that nothing had changed!’

She looked at him, eyes simmering with barely contained rage. ‘Mantle’s infrastructure was still crumbling. The police were still lazy and idiotic. The SDC was still paying pennies for dangerous work and expecting the faunus to thank them for it. Dad’s White Fang hadn’t changed anything. Sienna’s didn’t change anything. And all the blood Adam spilled didn’t make a scrap of difference to those people. It was all wasted.’

‘But…you still tried, right? You always wanted to help them.’

‘Sun,’ she paused, the anger in her voice fading to shame. ‘I didn’t help those people. Not before. And not now, either. I could have done something. Volunteered. Advocated maybe. But I didn’t. I went dancing with Yang instead.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

Sun had nothing. At least, nothing that would ease the guilt she had saddled herself with. Then again, he’d never had to see the things she had. In Vacuo no one cared what race you were. And in Haven he’d been far removed from the problems of the faunus in the rest of the city.

‘It’s not all on you,’ he said finally. ‘One person can’t change a whole city overnight.’

Blake scoffed. ‘That’s the excuse everyone gives themselves for doing nothing.’

‘Alright then. We’ll go back.’

She blinked. ‘What?’

Sun leaned up on his elbow. ‘I’m serious. Maybe not now. But once all of this is over, once, y’know, the world isn’t about to collapse, we’ll head back there and start changing things ourselves.’

The edge of Blake’s lips twitched. ‘You _are_ serious, aren’t you?’

‘I’m the most serious person I know.’

 _That_ finally got her laughing. ‘Sun, you…’ She had to pause as Sun leaned in to snatch a kiss. When they parted, she was still smiling. ‘You know fighting to make life better there could take a lifetime. And it’s cold. Very cold.’

‘So I’ll wear an extra shirt?’

‘You mean _a_ shirt?’

‘Same same. It doesn’t matter if you want to help in Mantle. In Vale. In some forgotten mountain range or in the middle of a desert. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. That’s where I’ll be warm.’

Blake arched an eyebrow at him. Sun blushed as he realised what he’d just said. ‘I mean…’

‘I know what you meant,’ Blake said. Her smile eased his embarrassment. ‘You’ll really come with me, then? Wherever I go?’

‘If you want me to.’

Blake pursed her lips, as if weighing up the merits of his offer. She took his hand and squeezed it tight.

‘I do.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It pains me a little that RT will likely never let Sun and Blake have another in depth conversation, but oh well.


	3. Moon over Menagerie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all strength was shown on the battlefield. And not all bad memories faded with time.

  1. Comfort



Sun was a strong man. Blake knew this better than most. He had the kind of strength that wasn’t praised or glorified, that didn’t draw legions of fanatics. His strength let him chase after the things he wanted most. The strength to follow his convictions. But more than all of that he had the strength to be kind in a world that so often wasn’t.

She was so used to him being strong that it was easy to miss when his strength faltered.

When he tossed and turned in his sleep, when he clawed at the pillows and whimpered at something in his dreams, Blake’s heart began to ache. When she woke him, he tried to be strong again.

‘I’m fine,’ he kissed her cheek and climbed out of bed. ‘Just a bad dream. Sorry I woke you.’

It would have been easy to let him go. To roll over herself and leave him to his own thoughts. Blake had never chosen the easy path before and didn’t mean to start now. She knew better than to let someone dear to her be alone. A lesson that Sun had taught her so many years ago.

She found him on the balcony, lazily swinging in the hammock as he took in the moonlight on the beach. Blake easily climbed on beside him, ignoring his surprised glance in favour of snuggling closer to his chest.

‘Oh…sorry, I didn’t mean to…’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I wanted to.’

She relished the way he relaxed at her touch, the rapid beat of his heart beginning to ease. His mind, however, still had to catch up.

‘It was just a bad dream,’ he insisted.

‘You have bad dreams whenever we come to Menagerie.’

He paused. Perhaps he was searching for some excuse. She didn’t give him the chance to lie.

‘You haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep since we got here. You aren’t eating much either.’

‘Your mother’s cooking is…’

‘Sun!’ Blake tried not to laugh, but his grin told her he’d seen her smile. ‘What do you dream of?’

‘A horrifying world. One where Neptune has achieved his lifetime goal of banning all beaches.’ He immediately held up his hands as she glared. ‘Alright, alright…’

His eyes travelled up to the hills. Up where her parents’ mansion stood, rebuilt and (extensively) remodelled after Ilia’s attack.

‘I dream about the fire.’ The admission was pained, like he was admitting a defeat. ‘Ilia coming at us with that look in her eyes. Fennec Albain’s scream as he died…’

Blake held him tighter.

‘It’s weird,’ Sun stared at the city beyond. ‘Beacon. Haven. Vacuo. Everything that happened out there, none of it haunts me. But here…always here.’

His eyes flickered, and for a moment Blake was back there with him. With Mom and Dad…her oldest friend trying to kill them all out of spite and misplaced loyalty. She shivered despite the warmth of the night.

‘Does it make me weak?’ Sun wondered aloud.

‘Do you think it makes me weak when I dream about that cliff outside Argus? Or when Yang dreams about Beacon?’

‘What? Of course not!’ He sat up sharply. ‘How could you say those things?’

‘Don’t say them about yourself.’ Blake pressed a finger to his lips. ‘It just means that you’re no different to the rest of us. Some bad memories leave. Others stay.’

‘What do you do about yours?’

‘I look at you. Hold you like now until I feel safe.’

‘And you call me sappy.’ It was a poor attempt at a joke, but she could feel his heart and breathing returned to normal.

‘I also go see a therapist.’

‘That sounds more realistic. Got any numbers?’

‘A few. Want me to make an appointment?’

‘Please.’ He took one final breath and exhaled it slowly. ‘Shall we go back to bed?’

‘Mmmm, let’s stay here a while,’ Blake said. ‘I’m comfortable like this.’

‘You know what? So am I.’ Sun ran his fingers through her hair to scratch at the back of her scalp and she hummed with approval.

They lay in easy silence, Sun quietly massaging Blake’s neck as he enjoyed the breeze coming off the bay.

‘You know Blake, I…’

A soft snore against his chest let him know that whatever deep and meaningful thing he’d meant to say would have to wait until morning. His fond smile remained firmly in place until his own eyes slipped shut.


	4. Suns and Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sun's been waiting for the chance to show Blake all he can of Vacuo. One slight problem, Oscar and Ruby also want to see the town. And there's no way Yang's letting them out without a chaperone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pure, unadulterated, tooth rotting fluff. You have been warned.

  1. Double Date



‘It’s so great you’re finally here!’

Blake would have smiled widely at Sun’s enthusiasm. Would have, if she hadn’t already been smiling at him for almost twenty-four hours. Yes, she smiled in her sleep. At least, she was sure she did when Sun was around.

‘Where do you want to see first?’ Sun pressed. ‘The bazaar? The pools? The fight pits?’

‘The what?’

‘Nothing.’

Blake glanced around. The first thing that had struck about Vacuo was just how transitory everything seemed. There were some permanent buildings, certainly, but the majority of the city reminded her of the temporary campsites she had helped build whenever the Mistral or Vale branches of the White Fang were travelling too or from their strongholds.

The permanent defences, if they could be described as such, were earthen embankments, rough palisades around vital areas such as food stores and power generators and the occasional watchtower. For someone who’d grown up in the relative stability and comfort of Menagerie and spent her formative years envying the development and sheer power of Atlas and Vale, Blake was agape. How could people congregate together for so long and not have built…anything?

 _War, oppression, and the Schnee Dust Company_ , a voice that sounded all too similar to Sienna and Adam’s sang in the back of her mind.

Sun, on the other hand, was beaming at her like he was showing off the greatest marvels of the world for her approval. Her incredulity could never beat out her smile while he was looking like that.

‘Maybe the markets?’ She suggested. ‘I’m kind of hungry.’

‘Well, you’re in luck.’ Sun perched himself above her on a conveniently placed bar. ‘This week is the Festival of the Sands. Every nomad tribe around Vacuo will be setting up on the city outskirts. There’s tea exhibitions, a dance contest…’

‘Hey! Hey, wait up!’ The patter of feet on the cobblestones behind them caused them to pause.

Sun’s hand had gone to his slung staff, but Blake caught his arm and shook her head. The voice may have been unfamiliar to him, but not to her.

Oscar Pine crested the hill behind them, sweat streaming down his face as he puffed along beneath the blazing Vacuo sun. He hadn’t been the hardest hit by the sudden heat (that particular honour went to the Ice Queen currently being treated for heat exhaustion by Yang and Nora), but he’d still stripped off his coat and traded his heavy leather boots in for a lighter canvas mesh.

It was a sensible alteration. But for Blake, of far greater concern was the fact that Ruby was jogging just behind him. And she was wearing white. More specifically, she was wearing a white outfit that Blake had last seen adorning the figure of one Weiss Schnee.

‘Uh…hey guys?’ Sun said. ‘What brings you…?’

‘Oh, Yang told us we should get out of the house for a bit,’ Ruby said cheerily. ‘But since we don’t know the city she thought we were better off catching up with you. She said you had your whole day planned out with Sun and probably part of your night as well, so we could just tag along and get to know the city.’

‘Ah, that makes sense.’ Blake nodded. Well, that confirmed it. She was going to have to murder Yang. ‘And…why are you wearing Weiss’ dress?’

‘That was Oscar’s idea!’ Ruby turned to the boy beside her with a wide smile. Oscar, as he usually did when Ruby smiled at him, ducked his head with a blush. ‘I was getting way too hot in black, so he suggested borrowing some of Weiss’ things. You know. Since white reflects heat and…’

‘Yes, I’m aware.’ Blake shrugged her shoulders in her own white coat.

‘Yeah, exactly,’ Ruby nodded. ‘I mean, now I get why Sun never has a shirt on. I think Jaune and Ren are planning on ditching some of their stuff as well. But obviously I can’t do that. Oscar could…’

‘Nope,’ Oscar said. ‘Definitely not.’

Sun slapped Oscar on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, kid. Neptune thought the same thing when he got here, but he ditched his jacket for a tank top months ago. A few weeks of core training and you’ll be ready to go.’

At a certain point, Blake was uncertain where the blushing from Oscar and Ruby ended and the sunburn began. She hastened to bring mercy to them.

‘Well, you’re welcome to come down to the markets with us,’ she said. ‘But after that, Sun and I will likely take some time for ourselves.’

‘Oh,’ Ruby’s face fell a little at that. ‘You mean you don’t want to hang out with us?’

 _Curse you, Yang_ , Blake thought. _Curse you and a hundred generations of your bloodline._

Sun was already on the case. ‘Are you kidding? Of course we do!’

He slung an arm across both of their shoulders. ‘Man, I can’t wait to show you guys all my favourite places!’

 _But you were meant to show me all your favourite places!_ Blake wailed from the depths of her soul.

‘Sun? Could we talk as we walk?’ She managed to keep her voice neutral.

‘Huh? Sure! You guys go on ahead, it’s right down this street.’

He dropped back next to her, his easy stride shortening to allow the height-challenged pair to surge ahead, chatting excitedly to each other as they took in the sights and smells of a new city.

‘They have to go back.’ Blake informed him.

‘Huh? Why?’

‘Because otherwise we won’t get a moment to ourselves all day.’

‘Oh come on, I’m sure once they get to know the place they’ll want to take off on their own.’ Sun cast an arm around the city. ‘When I first saw this place I couldn’t wait to explore. Ruby will be bouncing off the walls in no time.’

‘You don’t know how Yang operates,’ Blake said darkly. ‘Ruby will have been given strict orders not to leave our side. For her own protection.’

His brow furrowed. It was just like Sun that he could never believe his friends would have less than pure intentions. His naivete was often endearing. Sometimes annoying.

‘But what does Yang have to gain just by sending Oscar and Ruby after us? Is she trying to annoy you?’

‘I have no doubt that’s a secondary objective,’ Blake said. ‘But primarily, I’d say that it’s her way of making sure the gardener doesn’t get too handy with the roses.’

It took Sun a few seconds to digest her metaphor. When he finally did, his eyes went wide. ‘Yang couldn’t be that subtle. Her solution to that would be punching Oscar, not setting you up as a chaperone.’

‘She’s grown cunning since Beacon.’ Blake’s tone was grave. ‘I fear she’s acquired a taste for scheming. And we are now pawns to her great design.’

Sun’s face indicated that he still had his doubts. But he would learn.

-Meanwhile, back at the safehouse-

Weiss Schnee was suffering. A deeper, darker suffering than perhaps any she had ever achieved before.

No, it wasn’t that she’d had to flee her childhood home with naught but the clothes on her back (plus one or two smaller suitcases). It wasn’t that she was now in Vacuo, a place so far from the elegance and refinement she was accustomed to that it might as well have been the shattered moon of Remnant. It wasn’t that her breakfast had been drenched in so many chili flakes that she’d practically breathed fire after the first mouthful of scrambled eggs. It wasn’t even that she’d had a fainting spell under the harsh morning sun and suffered the indignity of being carried indoors by Jaune, cradled in his (surprisingly muscular) arms like some helpless princess from a fairy tale. Or that she’d then had Yang and Nora dump her in a bathtub filled with ice water whilst still wearing aforementioned only decent set of clothes.

No. All of that she could take in her stride. She was a Schnee, after all, and a proven warrior besides.

It was listening to Yang’s self-congratulatory monologue that was prompting her to consider accepting Salem’s standing offer for any of them to change sides.

‘So you see,’ Yang concluded. ‘If I was to order Oscar to stop hanging around Ruby, he might comply. But Ruby would see it as me attempting to infantilise her and would probably hang out with Oscar more just to prove a point. But, by telling her to stick close to Blake and Sun…’

‘You make sure they never have a moment alone!’ Nora clapped her hands. ‘Thus sparing you the necessity of breaking Oscar’s legs!’

Penny was nodding as well. ‘That does make sense. But isn’t it rather unkind to ascribe such untoward motives to Oscar? He has been a ‘perfect gentleman’ has he not?’

Weiss groaned, less in agreement, more in protest that her recovery from heat stroke had become a gossip circle.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Penny, I think Oscar’s crush on Ruby is both wholesome and adorable.’ Yang took a satisfied sip of her lemonade and gave a satisfied smile. ‘And vice-versa. I trust and respect both their decision making and their autonomy. I just don’t trust their raging teenage hormones.’

-Meanwhile, back at the market…-

Ruby giggled as Oscar placed the flower in her hair. ‘Oscar…’

The boy smiled shyly. ‘My aunt always said that the desert roses of Vacuo were beautiful for their resilience as well as their petals.’

‘Oh stop it,’ Ruby said in a tone that indicated she very much wanted more of whatever ‘it’ was.

Sun gazed on with a sickened expression. ‘I think I’m developing cavities,’ he whispered in horror.

Blake nodded. ‘I don’t know how, but I think Ruby’s voice has actually gotten higher.’

‘We have to do something.’

‘But how? Every time we try and sneak away Ruby finds some way to track us. She’s like a bloodhound.’

‘Hey, don’t say that like it’s derogatory. I have several good friends who are bloodhound faunus.’

‘Sorry.’

‘There must be a hole in Yang’s strategy,’ Sun said with a frown. ‘Something she missed. Some kind of consideration she didn’t plan for. She knew that we couldn’t sneak off if she attached those two to us. She knew that we’d be tormented by juvenile diabetes over there.’

He paused, his jaw working slightly as he considered the problem. Suddenly his eyes lit up. ‘I’ve got it!’

‘Wha…’

He kissed her.

Surprise was chased away by warmth a heartbeat later, the feel of his lips on hers a balm after so long apart. It took far longer than normal for embarrassment to make her pull away. Conscious of the rosiness in her cheeks, Blake half hid her face behind a hand.

Sun braced, as if half expecting a slap for his temerity. Blake took his hand to sooth his involuntary flinching. She would never repeat her behaviour from Menagerie. Never. Instead, she smiled. It came so easily she realised she’d actually been suppressing it rather than forcing it.

‘What was that for?’ She asked.

‘Uh, um, well…’ Sun scratched his head. ‘Yang knows that you’re not the biggest for public displays of affection, that’s probably part of her joke right now? But maybe we could undercut that joke…’

‘By kissing in public,’ Blake finished. It was a bizarre chain of thought, even for Sun. And yet, like many of Sun’s ideas, it had a surprising degree of merit to it. ‘Well, maybe kissing is a little sudden.’

‘Oh.’

Blake slipped a hand into his. From the way he straightened up, it was almost like he’d been zapped. ‘How about we start with this?’

-Meanwhile, back at Yang HQ…-

Weiss had cooled down enough to be moved from the bathtub to a reclining chair. Once more, Jaune had been enlisted by the other girls for that task. Weiss hadn’t quite understood why Yang, Nora or Penny, each of whom could have lifted her with one arm, hadn’t done it themselves. She didn’t object, though.

Nor did she object to Jaune being press-ganged into standing nearby and fanning her down as she sipped an iced tea.

‘But I thought your plan was to make sure Ruby and Oscar had a chaperone all day?’ Jaune was demonstrating his capability to multi-task by keeping her fanned with one arm, preparing her next drink with the other and engaging in further conversation seemingly purpose built to swell Yang’s ego. ‘Now you’re claiming that you’re also trying to get Blake and Sun to be more affectionate with each other?’

‘And convince them that it was their own idea,’ Yang stressed. ‘That’s where my true genius comes in.’

‘But what was your actual plan?’

‘They were both my actual plans. See, I’m starting to think that the reason our enemies always seem to be one step ahead of us is that they put multiple plans into progress at once and let them feed off each other.’

Weiss sat up, suddenly indignant. ‘That’s not a plan. That’s just throwing random elements into the mix, causing as much chaos as you can and then claiming that the end-state was what you intended the entire time!’

Yang took another sip of her own tea. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, do you feel well enough to head down to the markets later on? I hear there’s a dance contest on tonight.’

-Meanwhile, back at the markets…’

Some things were consistent wherever you went, Blake supposed. No matter if it was Vale, Mistral, Atlas or Vacuo. Wherever society gathered, there were festivals and fairs. And wherever there were festivals, there were festival games. Games designed to fleece young lovers of every spare lien in their pockets as they valiantly strove to impress their beau.

Case in point, the row of tin Beowolves that Sun had been steadfastly trying to plink off their stands for the last ten minutes. His best attempts were, well, his best.

‘Well, that’s six out of ten,’ the barker said with fake good cheer. ‘Care to try again, my young friend? That big Ursa back there has your girlfriend’s name all over it.’

‘Thanks,’ Blake cut in. ‘But I’ve really got my heart set on that cute little Nevermore just there.’

Emphasis on the little. But it was just inside the range of prizes Sun could claim, and he was already perking up as she fished it out. Still, he seemed almost disappointed that his own marksmanship hadn’t translated to the game.

‘You know those things were weighted, right?’ Blake said as she hooked an arm around him. ‘You had to put two or three pellets into them just to knock one down.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Sun’s head was still slumped a little. ‘Kind of wanted to beat him at his own game. Sometimes a guy just wants to give his girlfriend a huge plushy Grimm. Which sounds a lot weirder now that I say it aloud.’

Blake wondered how long it had been since she had smiled or laughed so freely. Had it been the last time she was with Sun? But how long had that been? An hour with him felt like a year in the best possible way.

‘Excuse me, Mister?’ A high pitched voice sounded behind them. ‘I kind of wanted to try winning a Grimm, but I’m not sure I could handle one of these big guns. Could I use my own?’

The two of them spun around to find Ruby standing by the game they’d just left, the barker smiling indulgently at the diminutive teenager as he no doubt counted the lien in his mind.

‘Sure thing, little lady! Step right up and see if you can win your boyfriend something nice!’

‘Thanks Mister!’ Ruby beamed back before she reached under her hood. The owner’s smile froze in a pained rictus as Crescent Rose unfolded into sniper mode.

Oscar tottered under the weight of the giant Ursa. Blake was reasonably certain that the toy was almost as tall as he was, yet he had refused all attempts by Sun or Blake to help him ease his burden. If anything, he seemed inordinately proud of Ruby’s gift.

‘It was all Oscar’s idea,’ Ruby rattled off. ‘He saw how many tries it took Sun to knock down the Beowolves, so he suggested I trick the owner into letting me use Crescent Rose using half-charged rounds.’

Half charged rounds that had still blasted a ten millimetre hole through each tin target.

Rather than the nausea such a sight would have induced in her a few hours earlier, Blake’s ears perked up and her heart grew warm as she watched the two teenagers chatter excitedly as they congratulated each other’s tactical brilliance and marksmanship.

‘I’m kind of jealous,’ Sun murmured in her ear. ‘Will you win me something next?’

‘Did you have your eye on anything?’

‘Well, I heard there’s a cash prize for the winner of the dance competition.’

She cocked her head at him. ‘You know, if you wanted to dance you could just ask?’

He grinned back. ‘Hey, who said you’re the only one allowed to be veiled and mysterious around here?’

A high pitched squeal behind them reminded her of Ruby’s continued existence, if she had forgotten in the last few minutes.

‘Oscar! There’s a cash prize for the dance competition! Ten thousand lien…do you know what kind of upgrades I could buy for Crescent Rose with that?’

‘But Ruby, I can’t…’

‘No buts.’ Ruby pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Tonight, there is no such thing as can’t.’

As Blake let Sun lead her toward the dance marquee, she couldn’t help but agree with her beloved team leader. Tonight, anything was possible.

-Meanwhile, at the bar across the street…-

Weiss nodded as she absorbed it all. ‘So, your ultimate goal was to ensure that Blake and Sun, as well as Ruby and Oscar, would be in this location around the beginning of the dance competition?’

‘Exactly,’ Yang said sagely. ‘Otherwise Ruby and Oscar would have gone too fast and Blake and Sun would have just sat in a teashop all afternoon. Only by balancing Ruby’s inability to sit still with Blake’s patience could I hope to place both assets in the target area within the desired time frame. I have therefore doubled our chances of winning the cash prize.’

‘Objection,’ Jaune piped up. ‘Ruby is a terrible dancer and Oscar is a farmhand.’

Yang returned the same sinister grin she’d been flashing all evening. ‘I have other teams on the field.’

Nora went past carrying Ren over her shoulder. The other man had a resigned look on his face as his partner raced toward the dance floor with a manic smile on her lips and lien symbols flashing in her eyes.

Weiss sniffed. ‘Well, I can’t fault their enthusiasm, but I still doubt any of them have the technical skill to win if the judging is strict.’

‘Oh dear,’ Yang said blankly. ‘If only there was a girl here who’s been classically trained in singing and dancing since she was a child and has let us all know about it on many, many occasions.’

Weiss was gracious enough to accept the compliment regardless of how many backhands were attached. ‘Be that as it may, I still require a classically trained partner…’

Jaune coughed. ‘Well, three of my sisters needed dance partners for their recitals. It’s been a year or two but…’

‘Ten thousand lien…’ Yang sang.

Weiss pushed herself away from the table. ‘I changed my mind, let’s go.’

Yang propped her boots up on the table as she watched her minions flow away to execute her design. She took another sip of the fizzy cocktail in front of her and gave a satisfied sigh as the alcohol began to take the edge off the sweltering afternoon.

She almost didn’t remember Penny was still standing there until the girl coughed politely.

‘Yang,’ Penny said. ‘I cannot help but feel you were misleading everyone about your intentions.’

Yang stared back. ‘Penny, I just confessed to a nefarious scheme designed to win us some badly needed lien. How could that be misleading?’

‘Because I believe your intentions were not nefarious at all.’ Penny said. ‘You have arranged for Oscar and Ruby to have an enjoyable first date, allowed Blake and Sun time to reconnect and talk honestly, and even given Weiss and Jaune a chance to dance and unwind as friends.’

‘Friends. Right.’

‘But I cannot help but feel you have not gained any benefits to your kindness,’ Penny said. ‘For instance, you love to dance but now have no partner of your own.’

Yang nodded gravely. ‘Well, sometimes there doesn’t need to be a reward for helping our friends, Penny. Sometimes, the right thing has to be done just because it’s the right thing. After all, if I was only looking out for my own benefit then I wouldn’t be much of a huntress, would I? And so I watch, content to let my loved ones enjoy themselves whilst I quietly admire them. Do you understand.’

‘I think so,’ Penny nodded. ‘Or you could just dance with me instead?’

‘…yeah, why not? Let’s go.’


	5. The Last Pale Light in the West

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sun rose on Blake and Sun's last day with the White Fang with the promise of revolution. It set on the ruin of their dreams.

  1. Sunrise/Sunset



The moment before the dawn was the moment Sun dreaded most.

He didn’t mind the raids themselves. Taking down SDC robots was great fun. Tangling with their human (or faunus) security officers was almost laughably easy. Even an SDC Enforcer was more of an exciting challenge than a legitimate threat.

The clash of steel and the thunder of guns didn’t scare him in the slightest. If anything it got his blood pumping and his mind racing. The thrill of the fight, the promise of success, it was addictive.

Beside him, Blake was running a whetstone over the edge of Gambol Shroud. He knew she felt the same. Rarely did he see her smile more than when she was in the thick of the fight, moving so fast amongst their enemies that they sometimes shot each other in the confusion.

But the waiting was terrifying.

In the waiting was uncertainty. Was the intel correct? Had the defences been beefed up since Ilia conducted her reconnaissance? Had a traitor tipped off the SDC? They were only ever one mistake away from complete destruction. Sun had learned that the hard way in his time with the White Fang.

He shivered a little as the wind picked up from the east. Part of him knew he should have been glad, that the wind would muffle their approach. The rest of him was cursing the fact that he’d forgotten to bring a damn jacket again.

Blake sensed his distress immediately, her ears perking up as he looked away. ‘You’re cold?’

‘Nah, just really looking forward to the…’

‘You’re cold.’ Blake made to remove the camouflage poncho she’d draped over herself. Sun shook his head and she made a face. ‘This is no time for chivalry.’

‘I’m fine.’ Sun insisted. ‘The desert gets cold as well, sometimes.’

Blake ignored his protests. Worse, she scuttled up closer to him and enveloped him in the warmth of her poncho. Sun opened his mouth and promptly shut it again. There was no stopping Blake when she set her mind on something. Besides…it was rather warm. And with Blake currently pressing her chest to his back, the warmth was spreading quickly. A fortification against the pre-dawn chill.

There was a rustle in the scrub behind them, and a moment later Adam had joined them. The older man paused as he surveyed the two of them lying on the ground.

‘Would you two like a moment?’ Adam asked drily.

Sun glared at him. ‘Get bent, Adam.’

‘I mean, catching my best friend and best student in such a position? Shocking, just shocking.’ Adam shook his head. ‘I almost feel left out.’

‘You’ll be left in a coma if you don’t mind your own business, cow-boy,’ Sun grumbled. It was an idle threat and they both knew it. Sun’s brand might not have been burned into his face like Adam’s, but their screams had mingled together the day the overseer decided to pick two random faunus kids for a ‘compliance session’ back in SDC Quarry 14.

That bond wouldn’t change, no matter how many ribald jokes Adam cracked about Sun and his girlfriend or how many cow jokes the pair of them slung back.

Sun wondered if Adam ever got scared before the raids. He said he didn’t, but Adam said a lot of things. He certainly seemed the same dramatic bastard as ever, from his slicked back hair and intricate mask to the hand-etched rose on the hilt of his sword.

If there was a change in Adam, it was that his smiles came easier right before the shooting started. It was something Sun had always found unnerving. Being eager for the fight was one thing, but Adam was almost gleeful…

Blake’s hand squeezed his and his concern for Adam’s state of mind evaporated. She was beginning to crawl forward from their hiding place in the dry creekbed, slipping over the rocks and through the shrubs like a shadow. Sun followed, soundlessly ascending through the trees until he could make out most of the White Fang’s assault force stepping off from their designated form up points.

The fear had begun to fade already. The confidence of momentum was with him once again. The SDC mining camp lay beyond, with its stockpiles of unrefined dust just waiting to be turned into profit for old Jacque Schnee himself. That profit would go to the faunus people instead.

First light had cast the world in murky shadows. If the guards had night vision goggles then they’d be worse than useless right now. But for most of the faunus taking part in the raid it made no difference at all. The humans may have had technology. The faunus had something better.

Sun sprinted over the branches and in through the window of the first guard tower moments before the sun crested the horizon. With the pale orange glow behind him, he struck the base of the first guard’s neck with a closed fist and watched him slump to the ground. The second reached for a pistol, but Sun swung his staff by his tail.

A moment later he was back out on the walls, tossing down a rope ladder to enable more fighters to climb up after him. Adam was the first up, sword in hand as he raced toward the guard barracks. Blake was next, her eyes darting toward the workers accommodation.

There was no question as to who he would follow.

‘I’m with you.’

Blake offered him a small smile.

The sun crested the horizon, bathing them all in its light as the White Fang poured over the wall and through the gates, a sword of revolution rising up from the shadows of mankind’s hate.

Everything erupted into fire a moment later.

\----------------------------------------

Sun loved the feeling after a raid. When the crates of dust were stacked up and their street value counted. He loved the stacks of blankets they’d be able to buy. The food they could give away. The grateful smiles of the faunus they were able to liberate from the virtual slavery the SDC held them in.

Today was not one of those days.

It was almost sunset when they made it back to the camp. Ilia had raced ahead to bring back as many people as she could to help with the wounded.

No one could do anything for the dead.

Tonight there would be no impromptu feast to celebrate their victory. Sun wouldn’t get to sit with Blake by a roaring fire while they all threw apple cores at Adam whenever he tried to play his guitar. There would be no blankets for the cold in Mantle. No food for the hungry in Mistral. No smiles from anyone.

There was nothing to celebrate. There was only blood.

The camp medics were waiting for them, faces set firm at the first views of the carnage. Sun gently laid down one of the newer recruits, barely more than a boy, who’d taken a high calibre round through his stomach. The medic took one look and shook her head. Sun got the message loud and clear.

The screams grew louder as the medics began to poke and prod at gunshot wounds and traumatic amputations. The whimpering and crying and hysterical prayers rose and fell as the medics quickly depleted the limited supply of painkillers they had on hand. Soon the call went out for spare shirts to act as bandages, belts to act as tourniquets, tampons to act as gauze. Anything and everything that could be used was brought out and packed into gaping wounds or wrapped around fractured bones.

In the middle of the horror, Sun found himself looking for Blake. He’d seen her disappear into the smoke around a machine gun nest, a grenade in each hand, right before the whole thing went up in flames. He knew Adam was still alive. He was vaguely certain that he himself was still alive, but that could have been a figment of his imagination.

With all the screaming and pleading, Sun was amazed he could even make out Blake and Adam yelling at each other. He staggered toward the command tent, almost tripping over the growing pile of the dead. When he pushed the flap back he was greeted by the bizarre sight of Adam with his mask off and Blake with hers still on.

‘We were betrayed!’ Adam hammered the hilt of his sword onto the planning table. ‘Someone told them we were coming!’

‘You told them we were coming!’ Blake snapped back. ‘We’ve hit every SDC quarry, convoy and processing centre in this part of Sanus. Where else were we going to hit?’

‘It was a justifiable risk!’

Blake finally removed her mask, her eyes filled with unshed tears. ‘How can you justify any of that? We lost twelve of our brothers and sisters trying to take that place. You could have called for a retreat…’

‘I refuse to show any human my back,’ Adam snarled. ‘Never again.’

‘…but now another twenty of our people are on the brink of dying because you kept pushing us forward.’

‘Thirteen,’ Sun croaked. Their eyes swivelled to him, faces genuinely surprised at his presence. ‘Only thirteen are still breathing.’

Adam recovered his composure first. ‘Then we will avenge their deaths.’

‘Like you avenged them today?’ Blake spat. ‘I saw what you did, Adam. He was begging for his life. He wasn’t a threat. I thought I was seeing things, but you were enjoying it, weren’t you? You stretched it out.’

Adam leaned back on his sword, a sneer turning the handsome lines of his face into a spectre far worse than the Grimm mask he normally wore. ‘I never thought Ghira Belladonna’s daughter would sympathise with a human over her own people.’

Blake flushed. ‘And I never thought that the man who preached about the way of the warrior would show himself to be a cheap murderer.’

Adam recoiled like she’d slapped him. ‘How dare…get out of my sight!’

‘Gladly.’ Blake didn’t spare Sun a glance as she pushed past him.

Sun watched as his friend fumbled in his trunk for a bottle of rum, fingers trembling as he poured himself a glass. Only after his first sip did he seem to remember Sun.

‘Women, am I right?’ Adam tried to smile. The blood still coating his teeth somewhat lessened whatever effect he was going for.

‘Women,’ Sun echoed.

‘I’m sure she’ll be fine once she calms down,’ Adam offered him the rum. Sun took it, more out of habit than any desire to drink. ‘Might want to stay out of her tent for a few hours, if you catch my drift.’

‘Adam,’ Sun cut him off. ‘You executed a human?’

Suddenly Adam was looking anywhere but at him. ‘It’s not like she’s making it sound. It was…just an accident.’

‘Right, right,’ Sun took a swig. ‘Just…there’s been a lot of accidents lately.’

Something flashed behind Adam’s eyes. Something Sun hadn’t seen before. Or maybe something he hadn’t wanted to see.

‘I should go.’

‘Sun.’ Adam’s voice stopped him at the tent flap. ‘I need you. You know that, right? You and Blake. I need to know I’ve still got you.’

Sun paused.

He considered.

He lied.

\----------------------------------

It didn’t take long to pack. And with everyone focused on treating the wounded and burying the dead, it was easy to slip out the back of the camp and into the forest.

Blake knew the way better than he did. Sun guessed that she’d been considering the route for longer than just tonight. Part of him was hurt that she hadn’t trusted him enough to confide her plans.

Part of him knew he wouldn’t have listened before today.

They stopped on the ridge beyond the camp, the figures of their comrades now little more than stick figures around the fires. Ex-comrades. It didn’t feel real.

‘Where are we going?’

‘North.’

‘But Menagerie’s south.’

‘Is that what you want?’ Blake turned to meet his gaze and Sun flinched under the accusation in them. ‘To run back south and pretend like we haven’t been part of something horrible.’

‘It wasn’t all horrible.’ Sun didn’t even know why he tried to defend it. Blake spared him the trouble of trying.

‘Beacon Academy is north,’ she said. ‘I’m going there. Will you come with me?’

Beacon Academy. She wanted to become a huntress. Sun didn’t know if he wanted to become a huntsman. He just didn’t want to be a terrorist anymore. No matter what that cost him.

He took her hand. ‘I’ll come. Wherever you go.’

The sun continued its journey into the west. Only when its light finally faded did Sun's resolve crack, tears streaming down his face and soaking into Blake's hair as she quietly embraced him, weeping soft tears of her own for what the day had cost them.

To the north, Beacon waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I toyed with the idea of making this a Dark!Blacksun AU, but in the end I settled for a less extreme version. It was harder than I thought trying to write heroic characters as villains, but it's definitely an idea I'd be interested in exploring for this pairing later on.


	6. Finding South

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No child of Vacuo grew up without knowing how to navigate by the stars. Lying on a blanket on the roof of Shade Academy, Sun shows Blake the skies of his homeland.

  1. Stargazing



‘…and that one’s the Ruined Castle.’ Sun traced the outline slowly so that Blake could follow it. ‘That was my dad’s favourite. Seemed to think that whenever the light in the tower was shining his luck was better.’

‘Was it?’

‘Well, you have to understand that his luck was already ridiculously good. He once took a bet that he could walk across the Sinking Sands in the middle of summer with no water. Not only did he survive, he actually found the Lost Oasis of Finn and brought out some of the treasure to prove it.’

Blake’s face remained neutral, but the twitch in her ears indicated her disbelief.

‘What? I’m serious!’ Sun protested. ‘It’s hereditary. My luck is great as well.’

‘Oh?’ Blake was trying to remain serious, but even his protests were adorable. ‘And what treasure have you found recently?’

The smile that crossed his face married perfectly with a flash of something deep and hungry in his eyes. Blake’s cheeks burned as she caught the hidden meaning.

‘Hmm,’ she looked back at the skies. ‘Show me another one.’

‘Well…’ Sun’s drawl accompanied his arms snaking around her body and drawing her close. ‘I saved the best till last. The Two Lovers.’

Blake’s shiver was not entirely due to the cold wind coming up off the desert. Sun had brought her up to the roof of Shade Academy to give her the best view of Vacuo by night. She hadn’t realised that the view he was referring to was not below, but above.

Sprawled out on a blanket, her coat folded as a pillow, Blake couldn’t suppress a contented hum as the heat of his body warmed her.

‘And where can I find those ‘Two Lovers’?’ She teased.

‘Oh, they’re just over there.’

It took her a moment to realise that he was pointing with his tail. His hands were…otherwise occupied.

‘That…uh…that doesn’t look like two people at all,’ she breathed sharply as his mouth grazed the side of his neck.

‘Hmm? Oh, well when we’re kids we get told that they’re actually lying down next to each other. When we grow up a bit we realise…’

‘Oh…’

‘Exactly.’

‘Right, right…’ Blake nodded. ‘So…if the Ruined Castle brings good luck, what do the Two Lovers bring?’

‘Well, when the sky is clear and the lovers are bright in the full moon…’

‘Like tonight.’

‘Exactly like tonight,’ Sun agreed. ‘Some people thinks that it acts as an aphrodisiac. Others see it simply as a fortuitous time to find new love or begin a family.’

‘And you?’

Sun paused. ‘Well, I think it’s just a very pretty sky. But there is one thing about them.’

‘What’s that?’

‘See there? Where their hands intertwine?’

Blake narrowed her eyes, then nodded. ‘I do.’

‘That points due south, always. If you can find the Lovers then you’ll always know where you are and where to go next.’

Blake held his eyes for a while, a smile playing back and forth between them as their own fingers rubbed together. ‘Why am I surprised that you know the night this well?’

‘The day’s nice,’ Sun said. His hand enveloped her own. ‘But I’ve always found the night more beautiful.’

‘Is there another constellation that’s responsible for improving poetry abilities?’ Blake wondered aloud.

‘Well, there’s actually the…’

She pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Forget I asked.’

After that, they both promptly forgot anything and everything that wasn’t the roof around them or the stars in the sky.

-Meanwhile, two floors down…-

Weiss sat, aghast at the words and other noises that had drifted in through the window from the roof above them. Ruby sat, curled in a ball as she quietly rocked back and forth.

‘Should we…tell them we can hear everything?’ Weiss said.

‘It’s all over,’ Ruby wept. ‘It’s gone too far. They’ll be up there every night this week and it’s too late to ask to change quarters.’

Weiss blanched an even deeper shade of white. She glanced over to where Yang was humming to herself as she listened to music through a set of noise cancelling headphones. ‘Yang, maybe you could…?’

‘Buy your own, Ice Queen.’

She wondered if it was possible to borrow Yang’s sunglasses, then. Because there was no way she’d be able to look Blake and Sun in the eye tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am incapable of writing any kind of romance or intimacy without some kind of crack at the end. I do not know why I am like this.


	7. When the guns fall silent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sun never worried about Blake while the fight was happening. It was after, when the shooting stopped, that his real work began. His victory was when he could put a smile back on her face.

Day 7: Pre Battle/Post Battle

‘So,’ Sun said. ‘That was a hell of a day, huh?’

‘Hell of a day,’ Blake agreed.

Below them, the city of Vale stretched out like a carpet of lights under the moonlit sky. From the docks they could still see fires smouldering as the emergency crews struggled to keep them away from the dust.

As far as huntress missions went, Blake was almost sure Team RWBY would have been graded as failures by Goodwitch. They had prevented Torchwick from stealing some dust, yes. They hadn’t stopped the man himself from escaping in the chaos. They hadn’t stopped massive damage to the infrastructure Vale relied upon to keep sea trade running. Nor had they been able to capture any of the White Fang.

Blake wasn’t too upset about that part. After the kingdoms had officially declared the White Fang a terrorist body it wasn’t uncommon for White Fang members or sympathisers to disappear in the night in the name of emergency powers.

But right now, they’d be crawling back to Adam, an option she knew was forever closed off to her as of this night. Her old comrades might have sympathised with her leaving. Some might have even complimented her on her decision to infiltrate the power structures of human society.

Not after tonight. Tonight, she’d outed herself as a student of Beacon and an enemy of the revolution. Tomorrow she’d have a bounty on her head.

She wasn’t worried. She was far too tired for that. But it was a problem that wasn’t going to go away.

‘Your teammates seem nice,’ Sun chirped. ‘Except that white haired chick. She was kind of mean.’

‘You get used to her.’

‘Are you?’

‘Not completely,’ she smiled. ‘But today was a nice start.’

‘See?’ Sun grinned at her. ‘Give people a chance and they usually surprise you.’

Blake don’t know what made her take his hand, but she didn’t miss the sudden tension in his shoulders when she did.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Will you be sticking around for a while?’

‘Well, I’m not sure,’ Sun said. ‘There’s a girl I kind of like, but I’m worried she finds me annoying. Maybe a bit of a moron.’

‘I suppose she might, just a little bit,’ Blake said. She couldn’t hold back a giggle as his shoulder’s slumped. ‘But that’s okay. I think she might like morons.’

\-----------------------------

Sun hadn’t known Blake for very long. But one thing he could say for certain, she most definitely did not hold back when she was in a bad mood.

‘Stupid little…multi-coloured runt,’ Blake was muttering under her breath. ‘…get my hands on her I’ll shove that umbrella…’

Sun coughed. ‘So, Torchwick got away?’

‘Ugh, we had him,’ Blake punched the wall hard enough to make the aura around her fist flare. ‘Then some little girl with a steampunk fetish showed up and yanked him out of there before we could arrest him.’

Sun paused. That _was_ bad news. ‘At least we busted up that White Fang rally, right?’

Blake seemed to perk up on her inward breath and drop down again on the exhale. ‘The police got there too late to do anything about it, though. And did you see how many there were? When I left there were only a few dozen initiated members of the Vale branch. Now there’s at least twice that and I didn’t even recognise any of them.’

‘Well, none of them could fight worth a damn,’ Sun said with a shrug. ‘So if they’re going for numbers over skill then…’

‘That’s not my point!’ Blake snapped suddenly. ‘He’s never worked with large teams before, he prefers a small team of handpicked fighters. That wasn’t a raiding unit, that was an army in training. And if he’s building up numbers…’

She stopped, eyes wide as if she’d said far more than she meant to.

‘Blake…if who’s building up numbers? Torchwick?’ Sun took a half-step forward, then paused as she shuffled back. ‘You can talk to me.’

For a moment there was a flash of something in her eyes. Dark and afraid, like a hunted animal. She hugged herself, as if protecting from some unknown threat. As quickly as it came it was gone, the moment of vulnerability smothered by the aloof exterior she wore like a second skin.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Just don’t underestimate any of the White Fang. I know you can handle the rank and file, but if you see anyone with a specialised weapon or a more elaborate mask, know that you’re dealing with someone just as dangerous as you.’

‘Alright, geez.’ Sun retreated a step. ‘Don’t worry, I can handle myself.’

‘Not against…’ There was a glimpse under the armour again. Sun felt a pang of guilt for pressing so hard into something that she was clearly apprehensive about. ‘Just promise me you won’t take any unnecessary risks.’

Sun saw his opportunity and seized it. Backflipping away from her, he posed heroically next to the statue that dominated the front courtyard of Beacon. Planting his staff next to it, he gazed imperiously into the distance, the image of a Huntsman looking out over a city of innocent folk.

‘When one commits to the life of a warrior, there is no such thing as unnecessary risk,’ he said gravely. ‘That is what sets me apart from the common man.’

It was a calculated gamble. Blake was as likely to splash water at him as not. But maybe…

She was already snorting, clutching herself as she tried to keep her giggles under control.

‘You’re such a dork,’ she wheezed.

Sun just shrugged. If making himself look like an idiot was what it took to make Blake laugh, that was a price well worth paying.

\------------------------------------

‘ _Halt, junior detectives!_ ’ Blake mimicked, then promptly doubled over in stitches. ‘How could you possibly think that was going to work on Grimm? I mean just… _halt!_ ’

Sun and Neptune glanced at each other. Sun sighed.

‘This isn’t going away soon, is it?’

\-------------------------------------

When Blake came to, she was on a stretcher. A pair of Atlas combat medics were hovering over her, swapping down the wound in her stomach with antiseptic gel and carefully sealing up the damage Adam’s blade had caused.

‘Where’s Yang?’ She demanded.

‘Miss, you need to lie still,’ the woman above her said. ‘We’re still checking for internal damage and your aura is still…’

‘Where’s Yang?!’ Blake tried to sit up, but the woman held her firm. ‘I need to see Yang.’

‘Hey, hey, easy!’ Sun’s hand replaced the medics. ‘Take it easy.’

‘Sir, you shouldn’t be in here, this is a sterile facility.’

‘I know,’ Sun held up a set of surgical gloves. Blake realised with detached amusement that he’d even put a mask over his mouth. ‘They made me wash up twice before I came in.’

‘Sun, Yang is…’

‘She’s okay,’ Sun said. ‘Atlas set up a specialised trauma centre in one of the safe zones. Military surgeons from Atlas and Vale, they’ve got a lot of experience with traumatic amputations. Yang will be alright.’

‘No…no…’ Blake’s lungs were heaving as the moment sprang back into focus in her mind. ‘She’s not alright. Her arm…Sun, she was trying to save me. It’s all my fault.’

‘Any of us would have done the same thing,’ Sun said. ‘Me, Ruby, Weiss. Any of us.’

Sun may have meant the words as comforting, but Blake’s world spun as she saw the truth behind them. If Adam could cut down Yang without even trying, what would he do to Ruby? What would he have done to Weiss if she’d been there? Or Sun himself? The only hesitation Adam would feel would be deciding which one of them to butcher first and most violently.

She needed to go. She needed to run as far and fast as she possibly could to a place where Adam would never find her. He’d never made an idle promise in his life. None of them were safe whilst she was around.

‘Sun…’ She took his hand. ‘Could you get me some water?’

‘Huh? Yeah of course! I’ll be right back.’ He dashed away from her bedside as the medics finally finished their work.

‘Alright,’ the woman said. ‘Just don’t go picking any fights for a few days and you should be fine.’

Blake didn’t trust herself to speak. Tears were already beginning to trickle down her cheeks as she said a silent goodbye in her heart.

Her aura flickered back to life. She poured what strength she had into her clone. It’d only last a few minutes.

That would be enough to get clear.

\----------------------------------

‘You know, I’m glad that everyone’s so keen to go and fight for Haven now,’ Sun said. ‘I just wish we could have saved the house.’

Blake wrapped her arms around him and nodded. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘I mean, that was a well built house,’ Sun said. ‘Classic Mistral style, elements of Vacuo neo-modernism. The architect must have worked overtime on that. Is he still around?’

‘He is, but he’s a White Fang sympathiser.’ Blake leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘It’s alright, we’ll just use the beach house for a while.’

‘You guys have a beach house?’ Sun stared at her incredulously. ‘How have you never mentioned…you know what, never mind. What do we do next?’

‘Next, we go sleep,’ Blake said. ‘Down at the beach house.’

‘Right, should we wait for your parents?’

‘What? They’ll be staying in town.’

‘Wait so…oh…’ Sun suddenly caught her meaning. ‘You mean… _.we_ should go stay at the beach house.’

Blake gave him a patient smile. Sun scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

‘Sooooo…’ he drawled. ‘Sleep?’

‘Sleep,’ she agreed. ‘And…Sun?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Thank you.’

For once he didn’t wink, shrug or grin it off. The sober look on his face made him look…older? More mature, perhaps? She’d figure it out another time. Part of her was saddened. He’d never been naïve, but he’d still been almost a boy for the time she’d known him, even after Beacon. That part of him would be damaged after tonight. He’d given it up to fight for her family. That meant something to her. More than he could know.

‘So…you don’t happen to have any other creepy and/or murderous suitors that I need to worry about?’ Sun tried to sound flippant, but his eyes kept flicking over to where Ilia was now being questioned by Ghira’s guard captain. ‘Because I love you, but I don’t know if I can keep dealing with the attempted homicides.’

‘Well there was this one guy in primary school…’

‘You’re kidding? You really…’ Sun paused. ‘Oh…you _are_ kidding.’

‘Yes, but stay close anyway.’ Blake took his arm. ‘We might get mugged by a secret admirer on our way down to the beach.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming to the end of the week now, and I'd like to thank you all for reading. Normally I'm much more into writing military techno-thriller style pieces, so trying to write romance was a bit of a challenge for me. Hope you enjoyed!


	8. Look Down and Show Mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark Blacksun AU:
> 
> Sun kept his doubts to himself when Sienna made Blake the field commander in Vale. He kept his doubts to himself as the raids grew more dangerous and more violent. Blake asked him to keep them quiet one more time as they prepared to take down the biggest dust train Sun had ever seen.
> 
> But the more things change, the more they stay the same. And an unrelenting enemy is still an enemy, even if he wears a blue eyepatch instead of a white mask.

Day Eight:

Sun looked down at the approaching train and grimaced.

‘There’s at least six passenger cars,’ he said. ‘It’ll get messy if civilians get involved.’

Blake shrugged. ‘I’ll put Yuma and Banesaw on crowd control. That ought to keep any wannabe heroes in check.’

 _Or send them into a panic_ , Sun wanted to retort. He held his tongue, though. For the sake of putting up a united front, like she had asked before the mission began. She’d been asking that a lot ever since they got to Vale.

Vale had always been the kingdom in which the White Fang had struggled to get a foothold. Compared to the squalid conditions of Mistral or the rampant outrages in Atlas and Mantle, Vale was practically a beacon of enlightenment.

For the Schnee Dust Company, that meant their usual tactics of debt slavery, strike-busting and lax safety standards couldn’t be perpetrated without incurring a hefty package of fines from the governing council. That meant overheads were up to three times higher than in any other kingdom.

For the White Fang, the lack of tangible discrimination and exploitation left a distinctly low appetite amongst the local faunus population for…well, armed revolt was one way of putting it. Armed robbery for a good cause was another. Terrorism might have accurately applied in a few circumstances.

Sun tried not to think too hard about that one. He left the thinking to Blake most of the time. She’d always been his superior when it came to strategy. Perhaps a better fighter, too, not that he’d ever admit it.

It was why Sienna Khan, the Branch Leader of Vale, had made Blake the commander of the Vale Branch’s Direct Action Squad, despite Sun’s seniority in the organisation. Brains beat out brawn in most instances. At first, he’d just been happy he wasn’t the one doing the legwork for Sienna’s grand plans in the region.

Blake had just shrugged and asked for a list of targets.

The local White Fang presence was small, true. That was why Sienna had requested reinforcements from Mistral and Menagerie. Ghira Belladonna had agreed to provide her with a small corps of elite fighters as well as Fennec Albain to assist with finance and political support. Only a dozen extra bodies, but they were all veterans of multiple raids against the SDC and from Yuma down to Ilia they had a very sharp axe to grind with that particular monolith.

The SDC in Vale was used to putting up with a few protests per year and maybe one or two poorly organised boycotts. That meant the security precautions that were almost stock standard in the other kingdoms were practically non-existent in Vale itself.

Take, for instance, the train below them. In Mistral, an eleven hundred metre long train carrying ten thousand tons of unrefined Dust would have been protected by at least a platoon of SDC Enforcers, automated turrets and a flight of privately owned gunships. According to their contact in North-East Sanus, the train had left the collection centre with only a few dozen security robots aboard. Sun and Blake could have dealt with that many by themselves.

Blake, however, preferred to build redundancy into her plans.

‘Team One, go.’ Her voice was soft, but the edge of command was unmistakeable. Sun’s sharp eyes could make out three figures climbing up from their hiding places beneath the rail bridge over the other side of the gorge.

Ilia’s team was responsible for sneaking aboard the caboose and securing the long-range radio equipment that could allow the SDC to call for military assistance. Or worse, Huntsmen.

The engine and passenger carriages were just starting to pass beneath Sun and Blake’s perch when Blake’s scroll lit up again.

 _‘Radios secure,’_ Ilia said. _‘Three guards down. Light weapons only. No aura.’_

Blake shook her head. ‘Typical Schnee arrogance. Send millions of lien across half of Sanus and assume no one would dare challenge it.’

Sun shrugged. ‘Well, no one has before.’

Blake gave him an indulgent smile. ‘Then we’ll teach them the error of their ways. Won’t we, my love?’

Sun was man enough to admit that he had a weakness for Blake’s smile. It was one of the first things that drew him to her, back when they were both initiates serving out their apprenticeship under the same combat instructor. Lately it felt like her smiles were becoming fewer and fewer, drained away by the stress of her new duties.

And so, when she did offer him one, Sun felt like he could take on the world.

He flipped up his staff and gave it a twirl to limber his wrists. ‘Let’s go get some dust.’

They leapt off the edge together, the rest of the strike team following in quick succession. Above them, Yuma and Libby soared as overwatch, bat and flying fox faunus zipping over and around the edge of the cliff as mobile overwatch, keeping sight for any threat that might pose an unforeseen risk to Blake’s plans.

Sun doubted that there would be. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with the missions that they’d been sent on, but Blake had never planned one that went badly. He just had to trust her, just like he’d promised.

The train would be a knockover, a boon for the White Fang’s more charitable endeavours and a raw bloody nose for old Jacques Schnee.

And all without a single drop of blood spilled.

\--------------------------

The first-class dining car was abuzz with activity as the stewards left the forward kitchen carrying the first of the morning’s breakfast orders. The passengers were just beginning to roll out of their bunks, the early risers already dressed in fresh, clean business attire whilst the night owls (a mixture of heavy workers and heavy drinkers) were already signalling for the steaming pitchers of coffee to either recover from their benders or stimulate a fresh round of labour.

One stewardess, a pretty young faunus with a neatly groomed fox-tail, carried one such vessel to the far corner of the carriage. A tall young man was half wedged into the corner of his booth, half sprawled out on the seat. He’d been a late addition to the passenger manifest, so late in fact that there’d been no beds left for him. The man had insisted he’d be more than comfortable sleeping upright in a booth and asked for nothing more than a wakeup call with coffee.

Normally, no one would be allowed to get away with making such demands (who wasn’t on a six-figure salary, at least). But the crisp uniform of an Atlesian Special Operative went a long way to soothing such issues on a train owned by the Schnee Dust Company.

Well, not so crisp now, she thought. The man had his long blue coat drawn over him like an improvised blanket, whilst his maroon beret covered his eyes against the soft glare of the carriage lights. She tapped his boot a few times before placing the coffee on the table.

‘Sir? You asked for a six o’clock wakeup?’

‘Did I, darling?’ A muffled voice replied. ‘That was me last night. Me this morning wants another half an hour.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said patiently. ‘You last night also said not to accept any excuses from you this morning, up to and including cutting you off from breakfast if you didn’t shift yourself.’

There was a pained sigh before the man pushed his beret back and sat up. He drew back his long red hair from over his eyes and squinted out at the sun. ‘Last night’s me always thinks of everything. How far are we from Vale?’

‘Another six hours. Can I get you some breakfast?’

‘Please. I’ll have a three-egg omelette with smoked salmon and avocado on sourdough. Oh, and some hash browns, please.’

He had stood to don his coat, which, like the rest of his clothes, was of excellent cut and cloth. She noted that he had reversed the usual Atlas colour scheme, favouring a dark blue coat over a double-breasted tunic of matching colour. Silver buttons quickly fastened it into place, concealing a white dress shirt fastened at the neck with a scarlet cravat. A brown leather sword belt was fastened over a red sash at his waist, neatly complimenting his knee-high brown boots, highly polished to a mirrored shine.

It was a dashing ensemble, and not at all spoiled by the dark blue eyepatch that covered most of the left side of his face. The eyepatch had been embroidered with the same personal crest that covered the back of his coat. A deep red rose, slowly wilting.

‘Can I get you anything else, Special Operative…?’

‘Special Operative Taurus.’ He offered her a wink. ‘But you can call me Adam.’

\---------------------------

Blake hit exactly where she’d been aiming. Twentieth carriage. Spare parts storage. She allowed herself a satisfied smirk, even as Sun and the rest of her strike team landed beside and behind her. One didn’t make it, bouncing off the roof and disappearing off the edge with a strangled curse.

He’d be alright. Or he wouldn’t. Either way, Blake had a job to do.

The wind whipped by and even through her aura, jacket and bodysuit she could feel the cold edge biting at her skin. They couldn’t stay up here.

A simple hand signal and the rest of the team was pushing to their designated locations. Blake led Sun toward their own target, the command and control car for the train’s security detachment. She hadn’t wanted to alert them by landing right on top of it or right next to it, but by inserting a few cars down she’d managed to avoid detection and save them a lengthy walk in the wind.

Sun pushed ahead of her, his tail giving him the advantage in agility over the rooftops as they raced the clock to their objective. If the security droids were alerted it wouldn’t be catastrophic, but anything could happen whilst living, breathing humans were still in play.

That was the difference between her and Sun. He was content to follow the plan. Blake always planned for the plan to go wrong.

She went high, he went low. He kicked in the door of the security car even as Blake went in through the skylight.

The enforcers manning the watchpost were just coming on shift. Still half asleep, with coffees in hands and weapons either disassembled for cleaning or else securely locked away, they stared at the two faunus with the same unblinking comprehension Blake would have expected from a fish on the rocks.

Eight targets. All too easy.

The first guard copped a staff to the side of the head. Sun had pulled the strike, though not enough that Blake felt comfortable calling him out on it. The blow was still hard enough to knock him to the ground in a limp ball. The second was not so lucky, spilling his coffee on himself as he strove to yank his pistol from its holster. Blake’s blow to the back of his head was less gentle than Sun’s, but she doubted it would cause as much damage as the hot liquid now burning his skin.

The third went for her pistol, a slim little thing in a hard plastic holster. Blake almost laughed on reflex as the service pistol got stuck in the service holster on the way out, leaving its owner fruitlessly yanking at it with an ever-increasing set of profanities.

A sharp strike to the nose with the blunt end of Gambol Shroud and the guard was left to contemplate her poor drills on the ground.

The next two were still assembling their pistols with the desperation of men who knew they were already too late. Perhaps they were ex-military? If so, Blake was mildly disappointed at how quickly they had fallen apart under the sudden pressure. One of them fumbled the barrel as he tried to slide it back into the housing, the other completely dropped his return spring.

It was understandable. One thing to strip and assemble a weapon when the only pressure was a screaming drill instructor, quite another to do it with two masked faunus bearing down on you.

Sun was upon them with a flash of golden light, one of his copies delivering a swift uppercut to the one on the left whilst he flattened the one on the right. Of all of them, he was the one who had to change the most when he came on these raids. Changing his loose white shirt and blue jeans for a black combat vest and tan cargo pants was one thing, but he’d also been the one most resistant to first donning the masks.

Now his mouth was set in a firm line beneath a bone white grimace. The humans fell back, unable to halt his terrible momentum.

At the rear of the security compartment, two protected one. The one was frantically typing a code into a sealed locker, then cursing as it kept beeping and flashing red. The other two were hefting stun batons like they were any protection.

‘You said you knew the code!’

‘I said I thought I knew the code! Just buy me some time.’

‘There’s no time to buy,’ Sun said. His voice was empty. Lifeless, almost. ‘Throw down your weapons.’

‘Cal, don’t you dare!’

‘Screw this!’ The first guard, a young man with dirty blonde hair, dropped the baton and fell to his knees with his hands behind his head. ‘I’m not dying for the Schnees.’

His buddy, another blonde with pale skin, eyed the one behind them for a second before mimicking his actions.

‘You miserable cowards.’ The final guard hammered at the keypad. It flashed green.

Blake dashed forward as the guard pulled a shotgun rom the locker. He was just cocking it when she reached him. Her sword flashed and the man screamed, his trigger finger and two others dropping away along with the pistol grip and the stock of his weapon.

‘You bitch!’ He howled, hand clutching hand as he slumped back against the locker. ‘Faunus scum!’

Blake’s boot pressed him back far harder than was necessary. ‘Spare me the insults. I’ve heard them all before. Security key, now.’

‘Go fu…’ His defiance died an undignified death as her boot shifted to press down on his wounded hand. ‘Top pocket, top pocket!’

A moment later and she’d tossed the card in question to Sun, who seated himself quickly at the main terminal and began logging in to the train’s internal network.

‘I have manual droid control,’ he reported a few minutes later. ‘Putting them into diagnostic mode. We should have ten minutes or so.’

‘Shut down the cameras as well.’ Blake checked her watch, breathing a little easier as she saw the fifteen minute timer she’d set from when Ilia had taken down the comms was still above twelve. The Quick Reaction Force that a missing comms link would generate from the nearest Vale military garrison wouldn’t lift off for another ten minutes after that, and by that time they’d be well away.

The one handed guard seemed to have recovered a little of his courage now that her boot was removed. ‘You’re all dead,’ he snarled. ‘You just don’t know it yet.’

‘Uh huh,’ Sun didn’t look away from the terminal. ‘I’m sure the SDC will find us and our families real quick. We’ve heard that before too.’

‘You’ll never get off this train alive.’

‘Really?’ Sun said. ‘Because it looks to me like we just took down all your fancy robots without a shot fired. And it looks like our guys are just about done disarming your anti-tamper devices.’

It was a key indicator of the raw spite the SDC had that they’d begun fitting specialised self-destruct charges to their dust shipments. One wrong move and a whole case of fire dust could be flooded with water, turning the precious powder to useless sludge.

But the White Fang had adapted. They always did.

And yet…Blake could have sworn there was a hint of smugness in the guard’s face. Not something you expected to see from a man about to spend the rest of his life as a cripple, if he survived at all.

‘Why won’t we survive this train?’

The guard clammed up. It was the worst thing he could have done for himself.

Blake’s boot slammed down on his wound a moment later. ‘What other security is on this train?’

\-------------------------------------

Like many assistants to the rich and powerful, Miss Eliza Patricia Alfred had, for want of a better term, come up from the gutter.

There was always a tell-tale sign of those who had made the jump from Mantle to Atlas. It was in the accent. If you ever wanted to fit in properly amongst the upper crust of the kingdom’s elite, you had to sound like them. She herself had spent countless hours studying under a phonetician (a wretched taskmaster she still thought of very fondly) to perfect the image of a cultured lady of society. Consequently, her diction had a perfectionist streak in it that not even a born and raised member of Atlesian high society could have possessed naturally.

No one from Atlas could have guessed it, of course. Nor could anyone from Mantle. Only those who had lived in both kingdoms and walked a similar path knew exactly the vocal twinges to look for. The kindly major domo at the Schnee Manor, Klein Sieben, had given her a knowing wink when he hired her seven years ago.

Indeed, she’d only found out that Jacques Schnee himself had begun his illustrious career as a junior clerk in Mantle when he commented on how well she had suppressed her old accent when she was serving his tea. The man was not renowned for his kindness (quite the opposite), but he _had_ ensured her steady promotion in his household and even arranged a loan so she could afford to study an education degree in her spare time.

Which had turned out, in the end, was to ensure he had a loyal governess for his younger children rather than allow her to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. Still, it was a petty complaint considering she might still have been selling flowers in the gutter back down in Mantle. Or worse, scraping dust in the SDC’s quarries for a pittance.

And so she collected her white-blonde charge from their personal bedroom and walked them to the dining car with good grace. There were far worse, far more painful ways to be making a living.

‘Ah, Ms. Eliza and Master Whitley. Good morning.’

And of course, there were other perks to the job.

‘Good morning, Special Operative.’ She gave a polite nod to their waiting escort as he stood from his own breakfast to greet them. ‘I trust you slept well?’

‘Passably well, thank you.’ The red-headed soldier signalled a stewardess to come and take their orders. Not that he needed to bother. When the SDC owned the train and all its contents, the stewards tended to jump to it when a member of the Schnee family needed something.

Whitley just snorted. ‘I cannot believe Mother just forgot to book you a room.’

‘Whitley, your mother…’

‘This ridiculous trip to Vale was her idea,’ the boy huffed. ‘As was her prevailing on Father _and_ Winter to provide me with a military escort. And then she fails to provide any considerations for that escort’s comfort. General Ironwood should have at least…’

‘Whitley!’

‘It’s quite alright,’ Taurus gave her a quick wink. ‘I’ve slept in far worse places and on far worse surfaces than rich, Mistralian leather.’

That seemed to mollify Whitley, who turned to the menu in front of him without further comment about his mother’s shortcomings. Eliza was thankful for that much, at least. She and Willow Schnee shared many concerns at how easily Whitley was adapting his father’s viewpoints as his own, including the thinly veiled resentment the elder Schnee harboured toward the commander-in-chief of the Atlesian military. Thankfully, he’d also adopted his father’s respect for the young special operative.

‘May I have the pancakes?’ The boy asked the stewardess as she arrived.

‘Whitley,’ Eliza scolded. ‘Remember your manners. And no, he’ll have the oatmeal with dried berries, then toast with fruit preserves. I will have the spinach and mushroom omelette.’

‘I’ll have some pancakes.’ Taurus’ sly grin married perfectly with Whitley’s giggle and Eliza’s heartfelt sigh.

‘Mr. Taurus,’ she began.

‘Please call me Adam.’

‘…Adam,’ she continued. ‘I must ask you not to feed my charge so much sugar before he begins his semester in Vale.’

His penitent look did not fool her at all. But there wasn’t much of him that did. Others may have looked at his crisp, tailored uniform, impeccable manners and dashing charm, and seen the very model of an Atlas military huntsman.

Eliza heard the distinct cadence of formal speech far too thoroughly rehearsed to be natural and knew he’d studied under the same prickly phonetician. He may have attended Atlas Academy, may have fooled most people into thinking that he was as Atlesian as Amity Colosseum, but she’d wager a year’s salary that Adam Taurus had been born in a Mantle slum, just like her.

‘If I might leave Master Whitley with you for a moment?’

‘Of course,’ Adam said. ‘Rest assured, I won’t let him eat more than half of my pancakes.’

‘I’m sure,’ she said drily. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

As she turned to leave, she saw Adam slipping a comic book out of his coat pocket and casually placing it next to Whitley. She couldn’t see the title, but, given that the cover depicted a masked huntsman standing next to a scantily clad female companion whilst Grimm surrounded them, she could well guess its contents.

She sighed again. It had almost been easier back when Whitley seemed to hold Huntsmen, Huntresses and all things martial in open contempt. A few fencing lessons later and he had Grimm-slaying on the brain just like every other teenage boy.

Eliza made her way out to the rear of the carriage, past the bathrooms to where an open platform protected by a hard-light shield served as the dining car’s smoking area.

Clara, one of the stewardesses, flicked out a sympathetic cigarette. ‘How’s the babysitting gig?’

Eliza sighed. ‘Honestly? If I’d known what I’d have to deal with I might have stayed in housekeeping.’

The other two stewards both nodded. All three of them had been assigned to re-open the Schnee residence in Vale, where Whitley would be staying whilst he attended school in the neighbouring kingdom.

‘Honestly,’ Howell said. ‘It’s bad enough having to help carry Mrs Schnee to her room whenever she passed out. Or cleaning up the training grounds once Miss Weiss destroys another dozen training robots. I can’t imagine having to deal with all their dramatics up close.’

‘It’s not so bad all the time,’ Eliza said defensively.

Clara nudged her. ‘I can certainly see the perks. I know they’ve got influence, but can Jacques Schnee really just clap his hands and get a Special Operative assigned as his son’s escort?’

‘Escort, fencing teacher, apparently live-in bodyguard once we get to Vale.’ She took a deep inhale of her cigarette. ‘I heard most Special Operatives were fanatically loyal to General Ironwood, but Adam certainly seems to have ingratiated himself with Mr Schnee.’

‘Live-in bodyguard?’ Clara raised an eyebrow, and Eliza didn’t miss how her tail perked up with it. ‘Interesting…think you could slip me his scroll number?’

‘I thought you didn’t date humans? Something about idiots with weird fetishes?’

Clara looked surprised. ‘Haven’t you looked just above his hairline?’

‘How could I? He wears that ridiculous beret everywhere he goes.’

‘Oh. Well, I’m pretty sure he’s a bu…’

Whatever she was about to say was suddenly cut off by two demons dropping out of the sky.

\---------------------------------

‘There’s a Schnee onboard!’ The guard wailed. ‘First class carriage. There’s a heavy security detail. That’s why…that’s why you won’t get away.’

‘Hey, hey, enough!’ Sun grabbed her arm. He was too late to save the rest of the guard’s final finger. Gambol Shroud had cut all the way through, leaving it to fall to the ground with the rest of his right hand. ‘What are you doing?’

Behind her mask, Blake’s yellow eyes were blazing with feverish intent. ‘A Schnee. A damn Schnee right under our noses this whole time.’

‘Yeah, and their security detail,’ Sun reminded her. ‘We should detach the cars now, deal with the anti-tamper devices once we slow down.’

‘You’re still thinking about dust?’ Blake sounded incredulous. ‘There’s a far richer prize than that.’

‘He didn’t say which Schnee. What if it’s the special operative? Are you going to try taking Winter Schnee while she’s busy with her freaking scones?’

‘Easy way to find out which one.’ She turned back to the guard.

‘It’s the youngest,’ the man said quickly. ‘The boy. Whitley.’

‘There you go,’ Blake raised a hand to her earpiece. ‘All teams, this is Bishop-One. Target has changed. There’s a white prince on the board.’

 _‘You don’t say?’_ Yuma sounded vaguely amused. _‘Well, I think I’ll go say hello.’_

Blake hesitated and for a moment Sun hoped she had reconsidered. Instead, she nodded almost to herself. ‘Be careful, Rook-Two. He’ll have security.’

_‘I can deal with a couple of enforcers. I’ll let you know when Libby and I have him. Tell Banesaw to hurry up.’_

Sun grabbed her arm again. Blake stared at him frostily, but this time he refused to let go.

‘You can’t be serious about this,’ he said. ‘It’s just a boy.’

‘It’s a Schnee.’

‘He’s only what? Ten? Eleven?’

‘Thirteen,’ Blake said. ‘Unlucky for him.’

‘He’s not guilty of his father’s sins.’

‘And our fathers and mothers had no sins at all,’ she said coolly. ‘But that didn’t stop the SDC from massacring your tribe when you were ten. Did it stop them from shooting up our protests when I was thirteen?’

‘So, we’re just going to kill a child?’

Blake stopped, and for a moment Sun hoped he’d gotten through to her. Ghira Belladonna, even after he’d begun approving more _direct_ methods, had always been very clear that civilians were off limits. The injuries he and his wife had sustained from SDC enforcers may have altered his perspective on the use of violence, but it had not changed his heart. A good heart. One that Sun knew Blake had inherited.

‘We’re not going to kill him.’ Blake said. ‘But this is war. In war, prisoners get taken all the time.’

‘But…’

‘You can come with me, or you can stay here,’ she said brusquely. ‘It’s your choice.’

She disappeared through the roof hatch. Sun watched her go in a daze. This couldn’t be happening. Not like this. Not Blake. He looked down at the mutilated guard, the man teetering on the edge of shock as he stared at his ruined hand. Sun felt his stomach turn end on end.

But he’d promised. He’d made vows. To the Fang. To her. She was his leader. His love.

His hand travelled to one of the pouches on his vest, the guard flinching as he pulled something out. Sun tossed the sterile bandage to the human, along with a sealed morphine injector.

‘Put that on and inject that into your thigh,’ Sun said. ‘That’s all I can do.’

The guard stared back numbly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sun added. He followed Blake out onto the roof and toward the front of the train.

\-----------------------------

Yuma almost regretted that auto-doors didn’t allow him to kick open the entrance to the dining car. Some may have accused him of being dramatic, but personally he felt it added to the shock of the entrance. Shock was good, it kept would-be heroes firmly rooted in place.

As it was he had to rely on the fact that he was holding a pistol to the throat of a well-dressed human woman. Libby was just behind him, her own hostage one of the human stewards. The other one had tried to play at being a hero for the women and copped a broken nose for his trouble. The faunus girl he’d left zip-tied to the railing. No need to inflict violence on one of their people just trying to get by.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘Please excuse the interruption to your breakfast. This train is now under the control of the White Fang. All security has been disabled and all external communications are being jammed. I ask that you remain calm.’

The screaming broke out a moment later. Yuma scowled, then fired his pistol in the air. The screaming stopped.

‘That’s better. Now, if one of you would kindly point out the Schnee princeling currently in this car, I’ll be on my way with no extra fuss.’

No one dared to speak, but he saw the eyes tracking to his left. A young boy with white hair, wearing clothes that probably cost more than the annual budget of Yuma’s hometown, stared back at him with ice blue eyes and naked fear. A half-eaten stack of pancakes and ice cream was piled in front of him, a comic book dangling loosely from his fingers.

‘Perfect.’ Yuma did his best to sound agreeable. ‘Come here, boy. You can bring the comic book.’

‘Stay in your seat, Whitley.’ A man’s voice countermanded Yuma’s instruction. It came from someone sitting opposite the boy, Yuma realised. Someone whose face he couldn’t see.

‘Alright then.’ Yuma chuckled. ‘ _You_ in the fancy hat. Stand up.’

The man complied, keeping his hands raised above his head as he stood and turned to face Yuma. Yuma took in the sharply creased beret and elegant uniform. He didn’t even bother hiding his contemptuous snort.

‘What is it about you Atlas huntsmen that makes you dress up like you’re going to a debutante ball?’

The huntsman shrugged. ‘What is it about you White Fang types that makes you dress like you moonlight on the fetish circuit?’

‘Adam!’ The woman in Yuma’s arm gasped. ‘Watch your language!’

Yuma blinked. He’d never had to deal with someone trying to mouth off at him before. Most of the time the SDC were too busy wetting themselves at the sight of him. ‘You got a weapon, dandy?’

‘I have a sword back here,’ the dandy replied. ‘Would you like me to bring it out?’

‘Slowly.’

Keeping one hand raised, the man reached back into the booth and came out with perhaps the prettiest sword Yuma had ever seen. It was a straight bladed sabre in a brown leather sheathe, probably designed to hang from the sword belt at the dandy’s waist. The guard of the three-quarter basket hilt was silver plated, with a rose etched into face of it and painted red…wait, no. Yuma blinked. It was an actual ruby, carved into the shape of a rose and embedded into the card.

The sheer arrogance of the weapon both impressed and offended him in the same breath. A gem like that could feed a small child for a year, and this bastard was wearing it for decoration like he was some kind of model? Worse, now he could see that there was another ruby built into the pommel of the sword. It might well have been another gem, but Yuma was already seeing red.

‘Throw that to me!’ He demanded. ‘Now!’

The dandy shrugged. ‘Catch.’

The sword smashed into Yuma’s face, ruby pommel first.

\-------------------------------------

It happened so fast Whitley could barely think to scream. First the faunus in a white and red mask had stormed in with a gun at Miss Eliza’s head, demanding Whitley come with him. Then Adam had stood up and for a moment Whitley was terrified that his fencing master was surrendering.

And then there was a loud bang and Adam wasn’t there.

Or rather, he’d moved so fast that Whitley was left staring at an afterimage. He looked right to see Adam snatching Thorn out of mid-air, having launched it from Petal like he would a bullet.

The first terrorist had already been staggered by the initial impact, letting go of Miss Eliza and clutching at a broken nose. Adam disarmed him with a quick slash that must have finished off the faunus’ aura, then drove Thorn’s scarlet edge straight through his dominant shoulder.

‘Yuma!’ The second one screamed. She pushed her own hostage aside as she took aim with both hands. Adam was already moving, putting himself in between the terrorist and Whitley as he spun his sword to intercept her first wild shots, then shifted Petal into carbine mode and put two shots right between her eyes. The first high-calibre slug broke her aura, then second spattered the wall and doors behind her in a kaleidoscope of red and grey.

‘Libby!’ The first terrorist tried to rise, only to catch Adam’s boot in his face. He slumped back down, face first on the floor.

‘You stay very still, or I’ll blow both your kneecaps out,’ Adam’s voice was soft and calm. ‘How many White Fang scum are on this train?’

‘I’ll never…’

Whitley winced despite himself as Adam’s highly shined boot came crashing down on the place where the man’s back met his leathery wing. The terrorist’s scream was stifled by the floor, but Adam’s face was completely emotionless.

‘If ever want to fly again…’

‘There’s twenty.’

‘Sounds a bit high.’ The edge of Adam’s blade tickled the man’s beard and he recoiled away from the fire dust that had begun to singe the hairs.

‘Twelve,’ the man grated out. ‘Well, eleven now.’

‘Ten,’ Adam corrected. ‘Guards?’

The two security guards who had been standing helplessly at the far end of the carriage rushed forward, cuffs in hand. Adam took a moment to straighten his beret and fasten his eyepatch more securely.

‘There’ll be others,’ he announced. ‘Barricade the entrance as soon as I leave. Get on your scrolls and start making calls to anyone you can think of. Military. Police. Any huntress you know through a friend, maybe?’

‘But he said we were being jammed?’

Adam nodded patiently. ‘And are we just going to believe the terrorist right off the bat? No pun intended. Miss Eliza, please stay with Whitley.’

He sheathed his sword and gave the carriage a dashing smile. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm. I’ll be right back.’

He vanished through the sliding doors. Whitley pressed himself further back in his seat and for a moment considered hiding under the table. Despite Adam’s grandiose declarations, he didn’t feel any safer than before. His ‘protector’ had just left him behind.

‘Whitley?’ He looked up to meet Eliza’s eyes. She was scared too, he could see it. And she was even less equipped to protect him than he was. ‘Are you alright?’

‘I want Winter,’ Whitley whimpered, hot tears beginning to stream down his face. _‘I want Winter.’_

\----------------------------

The radio crackled to life. Banesaw’s heavy rumble was barely audible over the wind and the clatter of the train. _‘Blake, I can’t reach Yuma. I know he went inside the passenger cars with Libby, but….wait…someone’s coming out!’_

A new voice came over Blake’s earpiece and she skidded to a halt as it began to speak.

_‘Good morning, brothers and sisters of the White Fang. My name is unimportant and you wouldn’t have heard of me anyway. Suffice it to say, I am the man currently responsible for protecting Mr. Schnee’s property from whatever dregs of society have hauled themselves aboard. Mr. Yuma was kind of enough to lend me this earpiece so I could deliver the following message: Get off this train. Failure to do so will result in…’_

Blake quickly grew tired of hearing the condescending sneer in her (rather sensitive) ears. A quick flick of her scroll cut Yuma’s appropriated radio out of their net. ‘Banesaw,’ she said. ‘Kill him. Dawn and Merry, reinforce him.’

_‘With pleasure.’_

Sun had caught up with her in the moments she had paused. He knew better than to try grabbing her, but he still jumped in front to block her way.

‘Blake, if Yuma and Libby are already down then we should just cut our losses. Detach the dust cars, make a clean getaway.’

Blake brushed past him. ‘If Banesaw doesn’t kill him then we can finish him off together.’

‘But the dust…’

Blake couldn’t believe it. How was he still not getting this? ‘That Schnee is worth ten train loads of dust.’

‘It’s just a child,’ he tried to protest again.

He hadn’t been there at the protest in Mantle. The SDC enforcers had claimed that firebombs had been heaved at their line. At the inquiry they’d claimed self-defence. Blake had been in the front line, waving her sign furiously next to Mom as Dad gave his speech. She’d watched her own blood mingle with Mom’s in the aftermath.

Sun, at least, had been spared the sight of his tribe’s massacre, taken away at the last minute by the White Fang agents who had warned of the incoming mercenaries. He could close his eyes and pretend that they could fight this war decently if he wanted to.

Blake had no such reservations.

‘Get out of my way, Sun.’

‘I’m not going to let you make a decision you’ll regret.’

‘Let me?’ Blake was struggling to keep her temper under control. Sun wasn’t making it easy. ‘We’re on a mission. You need not follow my orders.’

‘That’s right, we are on a mission,’ Sun nodded. ‘Our mission was to get the dust.’

‘Stop talking to me about the damn dust,’ she snarled.

‘Blake…’ The pain in his voice made her stop, if only for a moment. ‘We’re better than the Schnees. _You_ are better than this.’

Blake bowed her head, the unease in her heart threatening to well up and strangle her resolve. She tried to think of Mom, the memories of her long convalescence and frequent surgeries.

 _The boy has a mother as well._ The voice might have been her conscience. Might have been a memory…but it was too late to turn back.

‘We all make sacrifices.’ She pressed onwards, sword in hand. ‘We do what we have to for the sake of equality.’

She reached the edge of the next carriage just in time to watch her friends die.

It was a huntsman. Not just a huntsman, but a special operative. She’d sent her friends to fight a special operative without her.

‘No…’

Steel rang on steel, dust rounds cut through the air, Banesaw’s curses grew angrier with every missed or deflected swing of his chainsword.

‘Stand still!’

‘No thanks!’ Came the glib reply. ‘I don’t suppose you’d mind moving a little faster?’

‘Aaaargh!’

‘That’s better.’

Blake broke into a run, already knowing that she’d be too late. Merry was already slumped over with a bloodied slash over his torso and a neat stab wound through his throat. Dawn was still fighting, but her curved knives couldn’t keep up with the operative’s ferocious cut-and-thrust swordsmanship. The short carbine in his left hand was easily keeping Banesaw at bay whilst he deftly parried a desperate attack and used it to slip the tip of his blade through the side of Dawn’s ribs and cleanly through her heart.

‘No!’ Blake snapped her weapon into pistol mode and fired, more to draw his attention than anything else.

It didn’t work, the operative just deflected her rounds and turned back to Banesaw. ‘I’ll be with you in just a minute. Let me finish up the first course and then we can…’

Banesaw charged. This time the operative didn’t dodge. He accepted the overhead slash and caught it on the edge of his blade. The giant faunus revved the chainsaw to its maximum throttle and pressed down with all his might. The operative may have been almost as tall, but he was nowhere near as strong. He was forced to a knee, his guard being pushed lower and lower as the rotating saw blade closed with his face.

For one tantalising moment Blake thought that they’d won. Then the world darkened. Static hummed in the air and set her teeth on edge. The blue of the operative’s coat faded to pitch black, whilst the red of his hair and the red of the rose on his back became as painfully bright as the glare of his blade.

There was a flash and a spray of…blood? No…rose petals?

Banesaw fell to the ground. Or did he? His legs were still standing.

Oh. Oh no.

Blake realised she was staring at two pieces of the giant. His torso, completely separated from his legs. Her legs collapsed beneath her. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the ruins of his body. Banesaw…the strongest amongst them. But so much more. He’d suffered so much, survived so much, only to die at the hands of…

‘Now, I believe I promised to deal with you next?’ The mocking voice taunted again. ‘Not to worry, kitty. I’ll reunite you with your big friend here soon enough.’

The scream that tore from her lungs must have stunned him for a moment. Blake caught the operative with a slash across the hip that would have opened him up to his shoulder if his aura had been down.

He was able to tank the hit, but his response was slow. Blake may have left herself open, but the edge barely nicked her hair instead of touching her aura.

Unfortunately, it also sliced the ribbon holding her mask in place.

She didn’t care. This human wouldn’t live long enough to identify her. He hadn’t moved to follow up his attack, instead he just stared at her with a single blue eye, his lips narrowed in astonishment.

‘What the…? A teenage girl?’ His incredulous laughter grated on her raw nerves. ‘What’s the White Fang doing? Recruiting them out of the cradle these days?’

‘I’ll kill you!’

‘I’d prefer you didn’t try.’ He rested his blade against his shoulder. ‘I’ve never killed a child before; Don’t much care to start today. What can one girl do alone?’

‘She’s not alone!’ Sun had dropped down behind him, staff held forward as he advanced on the human.

Blake didn’t watch Sun, though. Her eyes were fixed on the human’s mop of red hair. The maroon beret with the silver Atlas crest had been knocked off during the fight. Now, under the bright autumn sun, she could see two small black bumps protruding from his skull.

Not a human at all.

\-------------------------

Adam sighed to himself as he looked over his shoulder. What should have been a pleasant morning spent worming his way into Miss Eliza’s good graces had turned into an impromptu fencing exercise with a couple of idiots in fancy-dress.

Not that he was terribly put out by the distraction. In fact, after he’d modestly played down his heroism to Mr Schnee and a couple of reporters perhaps she’d accompany him to whatever party old Jacques threw to commemorate Adam’s promotion and/or decoration.

He’d built up a sweat fighting the giant and expended a not inconsiderable amount of aura cutting him down to size. Really, at this point he’d almost be happy to let the remaining White Fang run away and spread stories about him around whatever hovel they were hiding out in.

But no, now he had to deal with a cat-girl and a monkey. His good humour was beginning to wear thin.

‘Oh my,’ Adam pressed a hand to his mouth. ‘Not one but two teenagers. Truly, I’m done for this time.’

‘You will be once the rest of our friends get here.’ The blonde promised. ‘You better scramble, pal. We’re only after the dust. You can keep the kid.’

‘Hmm…tempting offer.’ Adam sheathed Thorn with a flourish, casually angling the hilt to point at the boy’s chest. ‘He’s a nice enough kid, true. But since Mr Schnee would still be very upset if all this dust disappeared under my watch, I think I’ll keep them both.’

‘You’re a faunus.’

He glanced back to the girl. She was staring straight at his hairline, exactly where he now realised the ground down nubs of his horns were no longer concealed by his beret or his hair.

‘A goat-faunus?’ The monkey guessed.

‘Bull.’ Adam snapped. It was a touchy subject.

The girl was staring at him again. ‘Why are you working for human scum like Jacques Schnee?’

Adam couldn’t help but laugh. ‘He is scum, isn’t he? But be assured, I take my paycheques from the Kingdom of Atlas, not the Schnee Dust Company. I just do a few odd jobs for Jacques on the side.’

‘Why?’

He cocked his good eye. ‘Why? Look at the two of you. Dressed in rags, living out here in the wild, forced to raid the riches of your betters in order to survive. Pathetic.’

‘And you?’ The girl snapped. ‘You’re just content to stuff yourself with the scraps from humanity’s table?’

‘Well, obviously?’

She sprang at him with sword raised. Adam smirked. ‘Gotcha.’

Thorn sprang into his hand, slicing up where her arm would have been. It met the resistance of flesh and bone and cleaved through. Then the body evaporated. Adam paused, suddenly feeling very foolish as he heard bootsteps behind him.

Once more, he sighed. This was clearly going to be a long morning.

\-------------------------

Sun and Blake had always fought well as a pair. It had been commented on by her parents, by their instructors, by some of the foes they had taken down over the years.

There was a good reason for that. Not just that their semblances were nicely compatible, or that their weaponry suited a variety of engagements from mid to close range. It wasn’t even that his direct, confrontational style synchronised perfectly with her ability to flank to a more favourable angle.

It was the hundreds of hours they’d spent practicing together. Every day since he was twelve and she was thirteen, week after week and year after year until they knew each other’s body language better than lovers.

That they’d then become lovers was entirely incidental.

What worried Sun most about the fight that they’d stumbled into was not necessarily that their opponent had been strong enough to best Yuma, Libby, Dawn, Merry and even _Banesaw_ in quick succession. Nor that they were getting dangerously close to the cutoff time that Blake herself had set for evacuation.

It was that Blake was completely forgoing a co-ordinated attack in favour of throwing herself hell for leather at the well-dressed faunus. She’d gotten one good distraction in with her shadow-clone. Would he even fall for that trick again? Already he’d fended off her first series of attacks and almost casually batted her away with the blunt end of his hilt. Blake lost her footing, falling amongst crates of dust as she scrambled to regain her feet.

Sun waded in, gun-chucks barking as he hit the taller faunus from the left side. He may have worn a patch, but the other man barely seemed phased by the attack on what should have been a blind spot. Sun weaved around the counter-attack, dodging blade and gun with an easy grace. The guy was fast, alright, but Sun had fought faster.

The ring of a blade bouncing off his aura made Sun’s eyes widen. Alright, maybe not quite as fast.

‘Hyah!’ Blake swung at the man’s head with both hands, Gambol Shroud scraping along the edge of his blade as the operative blocked it. The man smirked, then dropped his boot into Blake’s leg. Aura flared, but didn’t break. Blake staggered backwards, her guard dropping as the red blade flashed out to catch her on the arm.

Sun found himself battered by steel slugs as he tried to move to her aid. The operative refused to let him pass. He may have been trying to act casual, smile and pretend like the fight was effortless, but Sun could see his goal was to keep boy and girl dislocated. Force them to fight him one on one instead of protecting each other.

They couldn’t keep going like this.

Blake renewed her assault, forcing the operative temporarily onto the back foot as he weathered a series of punishing cuts. Sun seized the opening to flip over him to re-unite with Blake. Ordinarily, this would be the point in a fight where he’d start unleashing his own semblance, getting his copies to distract and harass their target whilst he and Blake prepared to launch a final blow.

Something told him this guy wouldn’t go down so easily.

\-------------------------------------

Blake knew Sun. Back, front and sideways. She knew him through and through. She knew that he knew her attacks were wild, uncharacteristic, dangerous.

She didn’t have the time to tell him they were anything but.

Sun hadn’t seen the traitor-faunus unleash his semblance, cutting through Banesaw’s aura like a hot knife through soft butter. An ability like that wasn’t just a game changer. It could end her and Sun’s brief but promising careers as freedom fighters before they could get to the really interesting stuff. Like overthrowing a government. Or, even better, mounting Jacques Schnee’s head on a spike.

She had to convince him they weren’t worth the effort of using it. That he really was just fighting two teenagers in over their heads. It was almost working. His strikes had become less ferocious, less likely to kill or maim if they got through her aura.

Sun, however, was rapidly becoming his main target instead. His gun-chucks were a difficult weapon to fight, and every time they discharged near the operative’s head the man’s strikes only increased in power and ferocity. Blake knew the light, heat and smoke were distracting, but she’d never seen anyone object quite so strongly to them.

Unless…

‘Sun! Flashbang!’

Sun looked relieved, if only because she was finally giving him orders he understood. The operative, however, glanced sharply back at her. He must have been reconsidering his previous assessment. Perhaps regretting that he hadn’t finished battering through her aura to finish her off.

Blake finally gave him a smirk of her own. He wouldn’t live long enough to regret that mistake.

Sun’s copies smashed into the operative a moment later.

\------------------------

‘Oh, for crying out loud!’ Adam snarled. His good mood had steadily evaporated with every shotgun blast that went off on his blindside. His hearing was especially sensitive on his left, and the crack of multiple buckshot charges hurt far more than the impact of the pellets.

And now he was getting mugged by gold monkeys.

Adam wanted this fight over. He wanted to finish his breakfast. He wanted a day at a spa with pretty women pampering him.

If he had to kill a couple of teenagers to make that happen, so be it.

He dropped Petal and grabbed at his left boot. The commando dagger came out easily, allowing him to jam the razor-sharp edge in through the eye of the first clone. It faded out of existence. Then they all exploded.

There was no heat or shrapnel. That was something. But the noise and the light were enough to drive Adam to knees, the agony in his ears making him drop both his weapons and clutch at his head with both hands in an attempt to muffle the terrible ringing in his ears.

A boot caught him in his chest and knocked him flat on his back. As the vision in his good eye finally cleared, he saw the cat-girl standing over him. She had his sword in her hand, yellow eyes filled with hate as she tickled his throat with the red blade.

He played up the weariness in his groan, but not by much. ‘Well, you got me, kitty. Now what?’

‘You killed my team,’ she said. ‘I think it’s fair enough that I kill you.’

‘True. Although I did kill them in a fight. I didn’t execute them on the ground.’

‘You enjoyed it!’ Her accusation was half shout, half sob.

‘Is it a crime to enjoy your work?’ He sighed at himself as the girl raised her sword. Captain Ebi had been correct after all, his mouth was indeed about to get him killed.

‘Blake!’ The monkey-boy…Sun, was it? He had grabbed her arm before she could drive down through Adam’s weakened aura and into his chest. ‘This isn’t the way. He’s disarmed and beaten.’

‘Yeah, Blake,’ Adam coughed. ‘Are you really going to kill a fellow faunus in cold blood?’

 _Shut up, you idiot!_ A voice that sounded remarkably like Lieutenant Bree sounded in the back of his mind.

‘We’ll take him with us,’ Sun said. ‘He’s an Atlas Special Operative with ties to the Schnees. Think how much they’ll pay to get him back?’

Adam could see the emotions warring on her face. The desire for vengeance mingling with the need for pragmatism. He could appreciate the conflict. He’d wrestled with it many times in the past. Sadly, he couldn’t wait to see how it played out. In a way, being a captive would be far worse for him. Die protecting Whitley Schnee and Jacques would probably build a statue in his honour. Get captured? Well, he had a very long way to fall if the old man ever decided he’d become an embarrassment.

His right hand inched down his thigh. Down to the second dagger concealed in his other boot.

Blake applied more downward pressure with his sword and for a moment he feared she’d seen him moving.

Instead, she simply raised the sword to his face.

‘You took my mask,’ she said. ‘Fair is fair.’

Before Adam could protest, she flicked his eyepatch away.

\---------------------------

It had been petty. It had been cruel. It had been unnecessary. Blake hated herself for doing it almost immediately.

She couldn’t suppress a horrified gasp as the mask came away. She had expected a missing eye. Perhaps even a scar. Instead, a deformed red eye gazed back at her. Three distinct letters spelling out the name of her most hated enemy, stamped into the left side of the operative’s face like piece of livestock.

Sun had fallen quiet. The three of them stared at each other, paralysed for a moment. Blake felt her anger vanish, crushed by sudden disgust mixed with pity. It was not the first injury of its kind that she’d seen. Many veterans of the White Fang bore a similar ‘compliance’ brand on their bodies. But this…?

‘How can you work for them?’ She whispered.

The operative shrugged. ‘An animal caught in a trap will chew off its own leg just to survive.’

His shoulders rolled like a snake striking. Blake felt a searing pain in her right leg as something sharp and cold bit into her calf.

\----------------------------

So caught up in the moment, Sun had failed to see the knife come out. It was impossible to miss the after effect.

Blake cried out, staggered back, and dropped the bastard’s sword.

The operative caught it easily as he rolled to his feet. Both hands wrapped around the hilt, he swung it at Blake’s exposed neck. His ruined face was twisted by fury and raw hatred into something from the depth’s of Sun’s nightmares.

The edge bit home. Blake’s head rolled from her shoulders.

Sun was already moving to where he knew Blake had ducked away, her shadow clone already fading as the operative realised his mistake. Sun grabbed Blake and heaved her over his shoulders, bolting for the carriage behind them as the operative charged after them.

Sun caught the ladder and climbed, the edge of the red blade slicing the air where his feet had been a moment later. He didn’t dare look behind him. Didn’t dare look anywhere but right in front of him. One misstep and it would all be over for him and Blake.

 _‘Sun, it’s Ilia,’_ a voice crackled in his ear. _‘What’s going on?’_

‘Ilia? Where are you?’

‘Carriage twenty seven.’

‘I’m at twenty!’ He yelped. ‘Start detaching the car.’

‘What? But all that extra dust?’

‘Do it!’ Sun hurtled over a cap between carriages. ‘There’s a special operative on my tail and Blake _really_ _pissed him off!_ ’

\-----------------------------------

Adam had rarely been this angry before. And certainly not since Colonel Cordovin had made him attend all those anger management classes after a particularly nasty barfight. Right now, however, he was making plans to cut out hearts and nail them to weeping mothers.

 _Well, congratulations Doctor Bumble,_ he thought. _Guess I did need those extra sessions after all._

Being knocked down was irritating. Having his brand exposed was infuriating. But it wasn’t until she started looking down on him with pity that Adam got properly fighting mad.

He hadn’t bothered to pick up Petal. His hands would have shaken too much to take proper aim. Nor did he bother calling out any more taunts or calls for surrender. He didn’t trust himself to deliver the first without spitting, and the second would have just been a lie.

There would be no surrender accepted.

More figures in black and white were charging towards them, despite the protests of the blonde boy. Two came at Adam with axes, one swinging high and the other low. Thorn flashed twice as he dove in between them. There was only one scream. The other was now incapable of it.

The boy was starting to slow. He might have been faster than Adam, but the girl on his shoulders was weighing him down. Every step brought Adam closer, the edge of his blade a little nearer.

Sun saw it coming, the strike that would kill him and Blake both. He spotted the symbol out the corner of his eye, an innocuous crate in a whole stack of them. Ahead of him was Ilia, behind him was certain death.

He jumped, spinning in mid-air to aim his shotgun.

Adam saw it coming, lifting his blade to deflect the shot.

He saw too late that he wasn’t the target.

The explosion as the fire dust ignited almost threw Sun and Blake straight into the gorge. Ilia caught them at the last second with her whip, dragging both of them back to safety as Scour hit the emergency break. They rolled to a stop, Sun groaning with pain as he cushioned Blake’s fall.

‘Okay,’ he tried to grin. ‘This is the part where you say it.’

Blake ignored him, staggering upwards on her one good leg as she stared after the rapidly departing train.

Adam felt the last of his aura shatter as the shockwave tossed him head over heels. He felt the sting of high velocity impacts all around him and immediately raised a hand to protect his one good eye.

It took a moment for the blast to subside. As soon as he was certain of safety, Adam staggered back to his feet. He didn’t need to check himself to know that he’d copped a bucket of shrapnel all up and down his body once his aura had dropped.

But Thorn was still in his hand. Therefore, he could still fight.

Only there was nothing left to fight. He caught a last glimpse of the remainder of the train, one final flash of yellow eyes, before the entire thing disappeared around a corner. For a single, mad moment, Adam considered jumping off the train to finish the job. The saner part of his mind quickly regained control and reminded him that without his aura he was unlikely to survive the fall.

Adam took a moment to take stock. Whitley was safe, so Winter wasn’t going to kill him. He’d lost most of the dust, so Jacques was probably going to kill him. And he’d probably just shot to the top of the White Fang’s kill list.

He still had Thorn, that was something. And yet…

‘Oh, bloody hell.’ He eyed his tattered sleeves, shredded tunic and perforated coat with genuine exasperation. ‘This was fresh from the tailor!’

\-------------------------------

‘You should have let me kill him,’ Blake said. Her hand flashed and Sun felt his other cheek sting. ‘I would have if you hadn’t argued with me. Just like I could have gotten the Schnee boy if you hadn’t wasted my time!’

At any other time, Sun might have raised a hand to protect himself. As it was, he was left staring numbly at the train around them. They had most of the dust, just as planned. But apart from Scour and Ilia, now staring at them uncertainly, there was none of the strike team left to celebrate.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought…’

‘You thought? You thought what?’ Blake shoved him back and Sun tripped over a crate. ‘You thought questioning me, undermining me was the right way to do things? Our friends are _dead_ because of _you_.’

Ilia shifted uncomfortably. ‘Blake…’

‘Don’t you start,’ Blake warned. ‘I’m not in the mood for any more insubordination.’

She turned back to Sun. ‘Sienna will be here in half an hour for pickup. You need to be gone by then.’

Sun’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean that. You can’t…’

‘You need to go.’ Blake repeated. ‘Go back to Menagerie. Help out there and stay off the frontlines. You’re too soft for this.’

‘I have as much reason to fight as you do,’ Sun took a step forward. ‘Blake, please. I…I love you.’

She had already turned away. ‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Please. Just go.’

Sun stared after her for a long while as she walked away, Ilia supporting her weight as she helped her toward the rear of the train. Protests formed and died on his lips, his mind spinning as her rejection sank in.

He wanted to rage. He wanted to weep. In the end, all he could do was what she had asked.

Sun dumped the combat vest and threw his mask down on top of it. Other than his weapon and a change of clothes, he had nothing else. Whatever meagre possessions were left back at camp weren’t worth the effort of walking to them. He’d only ever needed Blake.

And Blake had told him to go.

Sun began walking south. Logically, he knew he should head north or east to the coast and find a port. But south just felt right. To the south-east was Menagerie. To the south-west was Vacuo. Maybe somewhere to the south he’d find some kind of home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was unsure if 'Free Day' meant we were able to pick our own subject or if it genuinely meant that Blake and Sun happened to have a free day. I decided to just roll with the former. 
> 
> This piece initially started life as my ‘Sunrise/Sunset’ contribution, but eventually it became a bloated mess that I decided to put away until the end.  
> Naturally, the follow up to this would be Sun making his way to Beacon in an attempt to leave his past behind, whilst Blake would struggle with the morality of her actions as Sienna makes a deal with the mysterious Cinder Fall, with Blake playing a very large part of Cinder's plans (and very much not becoming a female Adam-clone in the process).  
> In this AU, Adam would become a ‘Javert’ like figure to Blake and Sun, pursuing them out of wounded pride and a misplaced sense of self-righteousness. Because even in a universe where he deals with (most of) his anger and abandonment issues, you can always count on Adam’s inability to let things go to lead him to disaster. As to why he is apparently sucking up to Jacques Schnee whilst still having his brand? Good question. One I fully intend to answer if I ever pick up this idea again.  
> I visualised their outfits as shifting to better reflect their backgrounds and tasks. Adam’s outfit in particular would be more European in style (I was referencing the Master Assassin outfit from AC Unity while I wrote him) whilst Thorn is based on an 1897 Pattern Infantry Sword.


End file.
